Speaking of signs, remember those guys who were fined for correcting a sign at the Desert View Watchtower in Grand Canyon National Park?

Well, the promised "Statement on the signage of our National Parks and public lands" is up at the old Typo Eradication Advancement League website, and... does anyone else think it's a little snotty?

Sample quotes:

"It is absolutely egotistical for one to think that one can tell others how to spell."

"The act of vandalizing or damaging signs on the National Parks and public lands has a historic and archaeological impact that one cannot underestimate."

"Certain of the signs may have been put into place at the birth of the park, thus representing as intrinsic a part of its identity as any tree or canyon [sic!] within the park."

Moreover, the statement points out twice that "Altering signs without the permission of the owner is a crime!!" Without reading too much into it, I'll just observe that the old TEAL posts that I've seen always only used a single exclamation mark. So this is a little odd.

(I've been offline for a few days, and I see now that friend-of-the-blog Mighty Red Pen already wrote about this a few days ago. She too found TEAL's sudden embrace of orthographic radicalism more than a little surprising.)

Labels: grammar politics, punctuation, spelling