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Grammar Moses: Making cents of vending machines

I had never considered this, but by avoiding vending machines whenever possible I've been missing out on good fodder for this column.

Two readers recently brought to my attention offending vending machine signage.

"Woodfield Mall recently installed new Coca-Cola vending machines throughout the mall. I hope they plan to install new labels on all of these machines sometime soon," said Carolyn McClure of Schaumburg. "My husband and I are early morning mall-walkers, and I have been hoping each day that the general manager would stop to buy a Coke and decide to fix this."

Take a look at the attached photo, and you'll see what she means.

Carolyn's issue is with the accept/except homophone problem.

I would add that before any signs are changed, the printer could save on ink by avoiding the redundancy in "$5 dollar" by going simply with "$5."

That brings me to the second reader.

"I thought you might enjoy this sign on a vending machine (in Des Plaines) providing an incentive to pay with cash rather than a credit card," wrote Howard Meyer of Des Plaines.

Howard turned this sign, also pictured, into a math problem.

"I think they will charge me 1/20th of one cent more if I use a credit card," he wrote.

This represents a different type of redundancy. It should be either "$.05" or "5 cents." Writing ". 05 cents" suggests 5/100ths of a cent, or 1/20th of a cent, as Howard noted, rather than 5/100ths of a dollar, which was intended.

Collecting 1/20th of a cent would be a lot trickier to collect than that 9/10ths of a cent you probably haven't noticed for years on the gas pump.

Ssssssss

An editor asked me the other day whether the Blahbitty Blah Press' history has an apostrophe after the "S" or whether there is an apostrophe and a third "S."

I simply had no idea. It's one of those things I can't store in my brain.

The Associated Press Stylebook's ruling is this: The rule regarding singular proper nouns ending in "S" is different from singular common nouns ending in "S."

The proper noun gets just an apostrophe, while the common gets an apostrophe and an "S."

So, it would be the Blahbitty Blah Press' history but the hostess's charm.

There is an exception, of course. You drop that last "S" if the word after the possessive starts with an "S." So, while it's hostess's charm, it would be the hostess' scarf.

Well, I'll be ...

I used "hornswoggled" in a conversation with our publisher last week.

Who uses "hornswoggle" anymore? Not since Gabby Johnson's soliloquy in "Blazing Saddles" have I heard it used effectively.

If you were wondering, yes, I'm still employed.

Note to self: Next time, go with something simpler, less arcane.

"Bamboozled," perhaps.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.

This vending machine has trouble conveying that it costs a nickel more when you swipe your credit card. courtesy of Howard Meyer
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