Photo Credit In Hoboken Newspaper

The Proofreader recently contributed a photograph to Hoboken Progress, a weekly newspaper that covers "the mile square." As you can see below, the picture is of a pet waste sign posted in Hoboken that features sloppy copy and was the subject of the Proofreader's very first post on the blog. Notice the caption and photo credit printed beneath the picture.

The picture accompanies a story about a government official's Draconian proposals to punish residents who violate local pooper-scooper laws with a stiff fine ($2,000) and good ol' fashion public humiliation (the pooper scooper-offender's picture posted on a Web site, not unlike many municipalities do for sex offenders). The editor of Hoboken Progress contacted the Proofreader and asked for a clean copy of the picture, hence the mistakes aren't highlighted. To see the highlighted version, click here or here.

Bad Spelling in North Jersey Corrected

Tenafly, New Jersey. It's not a city or a town. It's not a village or even a hamlet. It's a borough. But just because it's a mere borough doesn't mean its name deserves anything less than accurate spelling on government-issued road signage. After all, Manhattan is a borough and no one would ever allow an official sign to be posted that depicts a misspelling of Manhattan. Tenafly deserves the same courtesy, yet recently, had been deprived of that simple dignity on a sign in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey...until the Proofreader did something about it.

As you can see in the highlighted picture above, this directional road sign situated at the intersection of Hudson Terrace and Palisade Avenue featured a glaring misspelling: "Teanfly." The name Tenafly traces its roots back to 1688 and is derived from Dutch words meaning "ten swamps" after settlers named it "Tiene Vly." That's actually a cool bit of trivia behind the borough's name, something that shouldn't be sullied by incompetent use of the language. What about Teanfly?

Teanfly is derived from sloppy writing and careless proofreading and means nothing--not nearly as cool as Tenafly. How does a mistake like this happen anyway, given that so many sets of eyes view the copy written on the sign before it gets posted? Even the guy who physically put the sign up didn't notice Tenafly was misspelled? Or did he notice the error, ignore it and hang a faulty sign without notifying his superiors?

We may never know. After discovering the error, the Proofreader contacted Peter Rustin, mayor of Tenafly, who confirmed that the sign was the responsibility of Bergen County. In early 2009, when the mistake was brought to the attention of Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney, a self-described stickler for accuracy, he was reluctant to speculate on its origin.

According to Mr. McNerney, one man, whom he declined to name, makes that particular type of directional road signs for all the counties in the state. Mr. McNerney was unable to say if Bergen County sent the sign maker flawed copy or whether the sign maker screwed up Bergen County's copy. Either way, despite all the opportunities for the mistake to have been noticed and a new sign to have been made, the defective sign was still put up.

As much as that apparent breakdown feeds the perception of government ineptitude, once the mistake was brought to Mr. McNerney's attention, the county executive, to his credit, leaped into action and ordered a new sign. A few weeks later, the directional sign with the misspelling was taken down and replaced with a brand new sign that featured the correct spelling of Tenafly, as you can see in the picture below.

When contacted by e-mail for comment on the posting of the new sign, Mayor Rustin responded, "The misspelling of our name reflected poorly not only on the County but our municipality as well. [This is] One small victory for accuracy and correct spelling!"

Governments are generally thought to waste money doing things the wrong way and, a lot of the time, that's true. While this scenario, in which Bergen County wasted money on a mistake that never should've been made, is by no means the portrait of government efficiency, at least the County acknowledged the mistake and promptly fixed it. Hopefully this kind of response will be a trend that gains traction with all governments, regardless of their size and the size of problems with which they're faced.

"Hoboken Now" Blog Picks Up Proofreader Story

The blog Hoboken Now on NJ.com picked up a story first reported by the Proofreader back in November about mistake-riddled street signs in Hoboken, New Jersey. The signs feature sloppy use of a hyphen and a misspelling of the word pursuant, as you can see in the highlighted picture below.

For the original post, click here.

Hoboken Government Poor Spellers

At least "Hoboken" is spelled right

The Proofreader’s maiden post points out the above sign, one of at least four like it, on Constitution Court in Hoboken, New Jersey. The signs serve to warn residents of the hazards of pet waste and inform citizens of local law, but their copy is written with poor spelling and sloppy use of a hyphen. As you can see in the highlighted picture above, the sign features a misspelling of “pursuant” in the phrase “persuant to chapter 93” and it sports an unnecessary hyphen in the phrase “clean-up”

The Proofreader consulted various online resources and was unable to find “persuant” as an alternate or accepted spelling of the word pursuant anywhere in the English language. MSN Encarta, The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com all concur that “p-u-r-s-u-a-n-t” is the correct spelling of pursuant. So, it’s definitely a mistake. Interestingly, on Hoboken’s Web guide outlining city regulations for dogs and other animals, the word is spelled correctly (PDF) at least three times. As for the hyphen in “clean-up,” The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage advises “Do not use hyphens…when the meaning is clear without them.” And in this case, the phrase “clean up” would be perfectly clear; the inclusion of a hyphen is unnecessary.

Moreover, a Google search of “persuant” turned up results pointing to numerous misspellings of the word, mostly by individuals on personal blogs or message boards, which isn’t a very big deal. However, two examples should raise eyebrows. One in which yet another government agency, on the other side of the country, misspelled the word on its Web site…at one time (pictured below). But the department, which boasts a phalanx of attorneys who should know how to spell pursuant, has since corrected the gaffe.

The search also turned up this one, which features a misspelling of the word in a headline, from what appears to be a companion Web site of MoneySense, “Canada’s leading personal finance magazine,” a place that should have Microsoft Word and/or a sufficient supply of professional editors available to catch blunders like this before they go to print or get published online.