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<\/a><\/p>\nI just returned from a 2,018-mile journey up the coast of California, into Oregon, then back by a slightly different route.<\/p>\n
Along the way I visited and camped in National Parks, State Parks, National Forests, and private campgrounds. Along the way I stopped to visit beaches and lighthouses. I hiked through redwood groves and wondered at wonders all along the route.<\/p>\n
And I practiced typographic criticism all along the route. On nearly every roadside information sign I grimaced as I found typographical errors, stylistic inconsistencies and major typographical gaffes.<\/p>\n
Bronze busts with errors, the most costly of the genre make me want to scream: \u201cDoesn\u2019t anyone proofread these things before they are cast?!\u201d<\/p>\n
An example: at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, all<\/em> of the quotes painted (printed?) on the walls are made with incorrect quotation marks and apostrophes. And, to make them even worse, all<\/em> of the quotation marks are followed by a space (don\u2019t do that!) at the beginning, and preceded by a space (don\u2019t do that either!) at the end. Willy Mays is my lifelong hero; why insult his quotations with bad typography? (Mays is still alive.)<\/p>\n At the Umpqua River, I visited the lighthouse, now operated by the county of Douglas, which keeps it running for navigators at sea. It is a beautiful historic lighthouse featuring a working Fresnel first-order rotating light, apparently the only one of its kind still in operation in the world.<\/p>\n In the museum next door are delightful exhibits that describe the lighthouse and its storied past. It\u2019s quite a place.<\/p>\n I have circled the typographical errors on this informational sign. I could almost not read it for the stumbling blocks of misused marks, etc. Remember my motto: Don\u2019t interrupt the reader!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n On a sign in that museum I found 56 typographical errors (I consider incorrect spacing, incorrect apostrophes, incorrect dashes, incorrect quotation marks, to be errors. That\u2019s the point of these essays). Fifty-six!<\/p>\n It starts in the headline, and continues to the bottom, every single apostrophe and quotation mark is wrong. There are ellipses with two dots (don\u2019t do this!), ellipses with dot-space-dot-space-dot (nor this!). There are spaces before closed-quotes, and spaces after open-quotes. None of these is correct.<\/p>\n There are sentences separated by one space (correct!), and there are sentences separated by two, three, and (maybe) four spaces.<\/p>\n There are hyphens used where there should be a long dash (I don\u2019t care which one).<\/p>\n There is an ampersand used in prose where the word \u201cand\u201d should be used.<\/p>\n It goes on and on and on, and it made me quiver with the Typographic Tremors.<\/em> Someone was paid \u2013 a lot of money \u2013 to make this sign and erect it on the site.<\/p>\n Why not do it right? Why not consult with a typographer who can point these errors out before<\/em> they go to printing, mounting and erection?<\/p>\n I am willing to do this for any organization \u2013 be it a National Park (they have a staff typographer at Harper\u2019s Ferry) or a local landmarks commission. I stand ready to critique and mark-up any historic marker signs and placards. Send me a PDF! I\u2019ll do it with a smile. No charge!<\/p>\n And, then the viewers of the signs can appreciate their beauty and information without getting the Typographic Tremors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I just returned from a 2,018-mile journey up the coast of California, into Oregon, then back by a slightly different route. Along the way I visited and camped in National Parks, State Parks, National Forests, and private campgrounds. Along the … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Typos-on-the-lightouse-poster.jpg\")
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