Grammar Moses: Where there are two wills, there is no way

During the course of a weekend's activities, it's almost inevitable that I'll find a sign that contains a misspelling or a bad punctuation error. I've shared many of them with you over the years.

Ask my wife how often I circle back to shoot a cellphone photo of something.

I know I'm not alone.

Jill Wilcoxen writes: "I saw this sign while waiting for my cousin to get her haircut, but no matter how many times I read it the wording was still flawed. Do you think we should inform people when they have incorrect signs posted? I don't want to be rude or snobbish."

Who am I, Miss Manners?

I have an outlet for my frustrations, you see. This column is my way of telling people their signs were poorly made and they should seek a refund.

I'm generally a very nice guy. If I think the sign sends a bad message, I might tell a store manager about it. Otherwise, I let it pass.

But that's a matter of personal preference. I wouldn't encourage you to walk into a biker bar and tell the bouncer he has a dangling participle. That could earn you a black eye.

I'm much more inclined to respond to someone on Facebook who has passed along a fake news story. By debunking something, I generally halt the sharing of the foul material. If more people were to do that, the world would be a better place.

Take a look at the attached photo Jill shot of the offending sign. It's never a good idea to include a word and a contraction of the same word in a sentence. At least, I can't think of a good reason to do so.

In this case, I sense some indecision on the part of the person who submitted the words or crafted the sign.

Go with either "You'll both receive" or "Both of you will receive" (if you want to avoid splitting your main and auxiliary verbs) but never "You'll both will receive."

Dangling participles

While I'm on the topic of bars and dangling participles, Trey Higgens forwarded to me a Facebook post from a woman in Gainesville, Florida. It contains all sorts of fun with grammar problems. She didn't create it, and from my Google searching I couldn't track down the originator of this list that erupted in social media and on blogs in February. My hat's off to whoever concocted it.

Here are several of my favorite nuggets:

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out! We don't serve your type."

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

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.