Sunday, June 10, 2007

Reduced PlANTS


Kerrie in Lubbock, Texas submits this fine flora faux pas, the second wilted PlANT in a week! Kerrie writes:
Attached is a camera phone pic I took at my local Wal-Mart Supercenter (Lubbock, TX). Ironically, I took it on Friday, June 8, which looks like the same day you posted the sign on the 'Not for SAle' plant. Must have been a red letter lowercase 'l' day for plants - ha. Hope you enjoy it.

Reduced PlANT, indeed! With the L reduced to the lower case, looking so much like "piants", I was expecting 3.14 ants to be crawling around in the parking lot.

39 comments:

Symbiosis said...

Lol...neat observation skills...

OCD On A Stick said...

The lowercase "l", uppercase "L", and uppercase "I" phenom is interesting. This letter is also pesky when it comes to teaching little ones to read and learn the alphabet. Depending on the font of the text, it's very difficult for a young child to identify the letters even if written correctly.

Anonymous said...

Dude, being a piant is bad enough. But being labeled a reduced piant? That's just cold.

Skittles said...

i think with the lowercase l, even when it's sometimes confusing to read some words, the human mind still gets it because it reads by the whole not just by the individual letters. kind of like typoglycemia but with letter cases instead of letter orders. yeah, just sharing.

by the way, did you recieve the lowercase l i sent before?thanks ^^
i love this blog.^^

grammargirl said...

3.14 ants - that's awesome!

Geologychick said...

I lOVE your site! lOl

William Levin said...

Skittles, I don't think I saw anything else from your name, can you send again?

Dean Martin said...

Hahaha I liked the 3.14 ant comment. That was ace mate!

Blanche DuBois said...

Ohhh I love it!

Come check out my blog...

http://wifeofafag.blogspot.com/

I'd lvoe to put a link to your blog up if you link to mine?

CoralPoetry said...

Hi,

But this one isn't very consistent. Piants in the Parking Lot, not parking iot. What gives?
Don't these iotic folks realize that we understand the word 'iot'

There's more to this. I posit that where space is limited, ie. a plant pot, the writer seeks to conserve such widthwise space by eliminating the stalks which would normally be attached to certain letters.

Regards,
Coral

Coralpoetry

Anonymous said...

It's cool!! :)

Anonymous said...

Haha. Nice.

Anonymous said...

woaaa i never really noticed the lowercase l thing. makes sense:)
kool blog:)

-lily:)

Sara said...

HAHAHA

PI ANTS!! woooot i get it. i like this blog... interesting theory

Bizzy Girl said...

Welllll you NEVER KNOW...so I checked Dictionary.com just to be sure. No results found for piant.

Mike Watercott said...

After seeing this blog I'm cursed for life - I'll (wow, great example) always notice those pesky lowercase "L"s.

Here's the worst part - Microsoft Word just encourages the confusion. Take the word Illinos in an Arial font...looks like 4 "i"s in a row to me!

Poor piants.

fake adult said...

THIS IS EXCEllENT! CONGRATS ON THE BlOG OF NOTE, TOO.

Divya said...

YOU are a genius!!!! Pi-Ants?....ROTFLOL!!

Anonymous said...

I lOVE this BlOG!!!

beer said...

Skittles said...

i think with the lowercase l, even when it's sometimes confusing to read some words, the human mind still gets it because it reads by the whole not just by the individual letters. kind of like typoglycemia but with letter cases instead of letter orders. yeah, just sharing.

i agree but i reckon you guys are making a huge deal out of pretty much nothing. people always spell incorrectly now and then, get used to it. we have brains for a reason and i know from experience that it isnt THAT confusing when you see words spelled incorrectly, not even nearly to the point of blogging it.

beer said...

blah blah blah blah

Mary said...

I read this as "pants" at first.

wateva said...

wow!
dats really cool!

pilgrimchick said...

Somehow, seeing this doesn't shock me. In addition to plants somehow being classified as "reduced" in such a way as to make clear the meaning of the word, the actual "reduced" item, the plants, also come out with even less clarity. So much for trying to actually sell anything.

ginni said...

Have enjoyed your blog. Great photos, and great concept!

Deadmanshonda said...

Grrreeeeaaaaat... another weird thing to annoy me and occupy my thoughts now that you pointed it out. ;)

adlaiff6 said...

Not just pi ants, but _reduced_ pi ants. Probably only 3 of them, maybe even 2.5.

Daniel J. Neeley said...

I'll keep my eye out for lowercase 'l's. Now that you mention it, I think I've seen signs like this. Pretty fun to devote a whole blog to the subject!

ginthefer said...

I had no idea that the lower case L thing was such a huge issue. This is hilarious.

it makes it look like they spelled paints incorrectly in this one.

Anonymous said...

HEllO EVERYBODY.
WIllIAM (!!), CONGRATUlATIONS FOR YOUR AMAZING BlOG.
I POST THE PICTURES I TAKE ON MINE
http://www.photophonia.blogspot.com
HOPE YOU WIll VISIT ME
BE BOP A lUlA
BYE BYE

TopHat said...

I'm amazed that you can post enough examples of the "lowercase ell syndrome" to keep this blog going!

BoggyWoggy said...

I lIKE WHAT YOU HAVE GOING. I lIKE READING SIGNS. IT AMAZES ME THAT SOMEONE SAID, "I CAN'T BElEVE YOU CAN FIND ENOUGH EXAMPlES TO KEEP THIS BlOG GOING!" DUH! READ SOME SIGNS!

Anonymous said...

The lowercase "l" must have bothered my brain enough to make my brain skip over it, because when I first looked at the sign, I thought it said "reduced pants".

Todd Vodka said...

Hilarious premise for a blog, I really enjoyed it.

Rock River Stitches said...

Great blog!! Will put you in my favorites list.

intheairblog said...

That's some bad spelling. Good luck to the sign writer.

angry mandy said...

hahahahaha! this made me choke on my pizza with laughter...amazing!

boingboingboing said...

Lower case L would be fine if the rest of the word were also, as in "Plant" but this is in ALL CAPS, the whole sign. If they knew enough to use an upper case L in "LOT", why would they suddenly use lower case in "plants"? I can't think of a better explanation than just plain ignorance. Better yet, why does this error always seem to appear on signs for plant sales?

William Levin said...

@boingboingboing, I ask myself that same question every day.