Perhaps my favourite typo is in this stone sculpture, greeting visitors to "Wordsmiths: the Writers[!] Cafe" at my alma mater, the University of Queensland.
It's huge. I expect it cost tens of thousands of $. It's been there for decades.
I smile every time I see it.
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This isn't a typo. It's a common grammatical construction. Sorry to take away any coolness...
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What's the construction? If "Writers" is an adjective it'd be fine, but it'd be an extremely non-standard use of "Writers". If "Cafe" is a verb it'd be fine, but again that's v. non-standard. If they're both nouns, as seems likely, then it's ownership, & an apostrophe is needed
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Seems that “writers” as an adjective wouldn't be *that* non-standard? Paging
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Can you find a credible dictionary with it listed as an adjective? Can you give an example usage that doesn't look like an error?
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That seems reasonable, nice theory! I couldn't find a dictionary with this kind of usage, unfortunately, but something in this vein seems plausible. Of course, the parsimonious explanation for the sculpture is that someone goofed, and it's a five-figure $, 30+ year typo.
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The thing I love most about this is... it’s fixable after the fact, right? like, you can just engrave the apostrophe now! I mean, the kerning would be too tight, but that’s better... time for some citizen chiseling??
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Replying to @maxkriegers and @michael_nielsen
I guess just the UK! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostroph
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Reminds me of *Eats, Shoots and Leaves*:
“Why did the Apostrophe Protection Society not have a militant wing? Could I start one? Where do you get balaclavas?”
books.google.com/books?id=e2ROR
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Sadly, the Apostrophe Protection Society recently shut down: washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/12
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