Here at the Sharp End we are waging a war against inappropriate apostrophes, appalling grammar and all-round shoddy punctuation. But we need your help: we want you to send in your favourite examples of misspelt words, typos and grammatical gaffs.
All the examples we publish will win a copy of the rather fabulous ‘Eats, Shoots amp; Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation’, written by punctuation vigilante Lynne Truss and published by Profile Books for pound;9.99.
We ran this competition in the last issue of ‘First Appointments’ and were disappointed to get only one entry - but, make no mistake, we will continue until we get a satisfactory response from you lot.
Luckily, our one entry, which came from Jill Stockwell in Enfield, was a good one. She kindly points out a howler in the Agony Uncle column in the November 14 edition of our very own ‘TES’, where reference was made to “the occassional packet”.
Rest assured, Jill, the offending sub-editor has been taken out and shot.
Jill also sent us this clipping from her local paper - it’s a textbook example of the misuse of the apostrophe. Congratulations to Jill, a copy of Lynne Truss’s book will be winging its way to you.
If you don’t want to see this competition in every issue of ‘First Appointments’ from now until 2010, we suggest you send in your entries pronto to: gail.robinson@tes.co.uk or post them to: Tessa Bartley, First Appointments, Times Educational Supplement, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1W 1BX.
