First of all, I’ve been wanting to post some stuff, but thanks to a Perl module mix-up on the server was unable to do so for much of the afternoon. (Those of you who had trouble posting comments, that problem stemmed from the same source, and it too has been fixed.) Anyway, everything’s been sorted out, so here we go…

• Enjoy the Proofreader’s Hall of Shame? Turns out that Meryl has a similar obsession. Check out her Grammar Gotchas page for more fun with typographical mishaps.
• The Stupid Advertisement of the Week goes to an ad for a cellular phone company spotted in my university’s student newspaper. The ad proclaims, “With each activation, register to win a gift certificate for a free keg of beer!” Only one problem: According to the campus guidebook, “the possession or consumption of alcoholic beverages is prohibited on campus”. Yes, I’m not so naïve as to believe everyone holds absolutely true to this rule, but still– this is the official campus newspaper here. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for freedom of the press and all, but this just strikes me as illogical…

Yesterday in First Year Seminar class, we were required to take a rather lengthy and bland survey regarding our college experience. One of the questions asked whether the word “vacation” had been worked into any of the previous semester’s curriculum.

Excuse me? Vacation?

Turns out, of course, that it was supposed to be “vocation”. Too bad, really; I think a class about vacation would have been much more enjoyable, too…

(Incidentally, though the item was phrased as a true/false question, the choices given were related to our personal satisfaction with this emphasis on “vacation” and its relative importance to us. No, I’m not exactly sure what I was supposed to mark either…)