The Illiterate State Fair of Texas

Posted on October 18th, 2008 5:49pm by Tim Rogers
Filed under Local News

I can’t tell you how proud this sign makes me. (Wife to self: “You better tell everyone that I’m the one who caught it!”) No child left behind. Go, TAKS!

30 comments

  1. OK, I’ll ask. Caught what? “Arts & Collectables” is correct; is there something about the yellow emblem?

    @ 7:45 pm on October 18, 2008

  2. According to Miriam-Webster Collectable is correct spelling as is Collectible….. was that word the basis of your post?

    @ 7:50 pm on October 18, 2008

  3. “Collectable” a variant spelling of “collectible,” looks odd in print to me, too, but is technically acceptible. Oops.

    @ 7:55 pm on October 18, 2008

  4. It’s a good thing you threw your wife under the bus right off the bat. :)

    @ 10:59 pm on October 18, 2008

  5. Look to the far right of that pic for another spelling.

    @ 11:05 pm on October 18, 2008

  6. It should have been collectable’s, right?

    @ 11:10 pm on October 18, 2008

  7. I took this picture there last year. They need to get on the same page in the sign-making shop:

    http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2057/1571931533_2d0ab75536_b.jpg

    @ 1:46 am on October 19, 2008

  8. RAB nail’ed it.

    @ 8:57 am on October 19, 2008

  9. I see — so the folks that made the tent sign used one (correct) spelling, and the folks that made the sign on the poles used another (correct) spelling. Wow. That really is just scandalous. Good eye.

    @ 8:58 am on October 19, 2008

  10. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collectable
    Still, it does appear odd in print. I agree.

    @ 8:59 am on October 19, 2008

  11. Tim, this political year’s PC dual signage seeks to embrace (figuratively… although there were rumored sightings behind the hog pavilion) both Joe Sixpack and Joseph Six Figure.

    @ 12:28 pm on October 19, 2008

  12. Potato v. potatoe…so much for the state fair’s VP hopes.

    @ 12:45 pm on October 19, 2008

  13. Perhaps this includes the artisan Tables that one can Collect?

    But then I don’t know what a Tible would be………..

    @ 1:14 pm on October 19, 2008

  14. I swear I saw “colour” in Heathrow airport once. Guess education failed abroad as well.

    @ 1:46 pm on October 19, 2008

  15. (Matt: ‘Colour’ is the chiefly British spelling for ‘color’. Used there much as is ‘theatre’. I learned this reading the ‘Loreal Haircolor ads in US Magazine at WalMart waiting to checkout. Wanta bet this all started when the Brits started sleeping around with the French? But then it could have been those ‘elitists’ we keep hearing about. Whoever they are they’re to blame for anything bad!)

    @ 3:06 pm on October 19, 2008

  16. The graphic design in me was screaming about the kerning, but I knew *that* wasn’t it.

    @ 7:45 pm on October 19, 2008

  17. Mocking that sign is one of my annual rituals, along with eating a corny dog and a funnel cake and the Creative Arts building.

    @ 10:21 pm on October 19, 2008

  18. Wow Matt, that was bad man. An absolute fail among all the comments.

    @ 11:31 pm on October 19, 2008

  19. you must have missed the fair signs that mispelled receive as “recieve.” i before e except ……

    @ 12:01 am on October 20, 2008

  20. This has been up for years. I guess it is too expensive to replace. Much cheaper to look dumb.

    @ 7:13 am on October 20, 2008

  21. Sophie ate the Creative Arts building?

    @ 8:21 am on October 20, 2008

  22. Both spellings are correct. Civilians aren’t beholden to the AP Stylebook, you know. When I was a teen, such was my grammar geekery that I would scour the William Safire column, on the prowl for gotcha-moment solecisms (surely Bethany can relate/commiserate). Never found any. But hey, at least I was aiming high.

    Don’t you feel so very, very small, Tim?

    @ 9:30 am on October 20, 2008

  23. The thing that makes Matt’s comment even better is the fact that several people seemed to miss the joke…

    @ 10:04 am on October 20, 2008

  24. Rawlins, Watch out for your fellow neighbours here on the board, lest they blow one past you.

    @ 10:47 am on October 20, 2008

  25. Main Entry:
    1col·lect·ible
    Variant(s):
    or col·lect·able \kə-ˈlek-tə-bəl\
    Function:
    adjective
    Date:
    1660
    1 : suitable for being collected
    2 : due for present payment : payable
    — col·lect·ibil·i·ty or col·lect·abil·i·ty \kə-ˌlek-tə-ˈbi-lə-tē\ noun

    Don’t tell your wife we KNOW how to use a dictionary.

    Don’t forget to tell her that Grey is the same as Gray

    @ 12:11 pm on October 20, 2008

  26. Don’t forget to get a “Chocalate Dipped Apple” outside the kid’s rides either.

    @ 12:21 pm on October 20, 2008

  27. sarcasm is lost on the intertubes

    @ 12:39 pm on October 20, 2008

  28. tru dat, matt

    inflection, tone, and non-verbal gestures are such a huge part of our face-to-face communication and that simply cannot be replicated in text on a screen (or often in print, for that matter)

    it’s why so many blog posts and comments are misinterpreted

    so how ’bout dem Cowboys?!?!?

    @ 1:34 pm on October 20, 2008

  29. matt/jrp:

    It’s not lost; it just requires greater skill to make it work.

    @ 2:22 pm on October 20, 2008

  30. The reason it is listed as a “variant” is because it is WRONG. Just because the illiterate unwashed spell it that way does not suddenly make it correct. Just like “irregardless” – it has become acceptable only to those too stupid to learn it correctly.

    @ 12:48 pm on October 21, 2008