OlD BulB

Found in my father-in-law's basement, an OlD BulB went off, reminding me that misusing a lowercase L when storing junk in the closet is not an unheard of phenomenon.  Also noticed the single correctly capitalized OLD Bulb in the lower left corner, and wondered if that bulb burned out on a different day.

Thanks for the photo, Moshe Kurzweil!

RIP Bob

Fellow Park Slope residents might remember Robert Schindler, known to most as Bob, the bespectacled old coot and occasional panhandler ("Pardon me, can you spare some change?") who could often be found sitting on a milk crate in front of the Starbucks on 7th Ave, entertaining passersby with his Mae West impressions and musings on the human condition as he chain smoked Maverick Menthol Box 100's. He died in a hospital last week, 12/23/10 of congestive heart failure. He was 76 years old.

I came to be friends with Bob, an NYC native Park Slope resident of 50 years, in 2004, when, once a week, I started helping him carry groceries up to his fourth floor single bedroom apartment on Garfield. Crippled from a severe inguinal hernia that went untreated in the 1980's, Bob wasn't always that hunched over panhandler who took frequent sitting breaks on milk crates in the middle of the aisles while grocery shopping at Key Food. In his glory days, Bob was an audio technician, and sold hi-fi stereo systems for Sam Goody. He was an avid appreciator of classical music, and had an extensive collection on vintage reel-to-reel tape. And you wouldn't know it if you saw the gaunt, wispy white haired man with his huddled, shuffling gate, but Bob stood over six feet tall, and was a fiery redhead.

In the last few months, Bob's health declined and he stopped going outside. I'd do his grocery shopping for him — his diet consisted largely of Utz Onion and Garlic Flavored Potato Chips (never Wise, they have the highest brown spot ratio of all the chip brands), green bananas, and sour cream. After he took a nasty fall in his apartment, I visited him at New York Methodist Hospital. He was full of self-pity, but cracked a toothless smile when I introduced him to my new wife. "You're a midget!" he exclaimed after looking Malya up and down, all 5 feet of her. "But she's very pretty", he said to me, aside, as if Malya couldn't hear.

The day before he died, Bob called me to complain, lamenting that he didn't want to be in the hospital anymore. I could hear the life leaving him, and I knew he couldn't come home. Desperate, Bob begged me to spring him from that joint, any way I could. I spoke to the administrators to see if they would authorize his release, but in his condition it wasn't going to happen.

"I have no friends," Bob said, "Nobody cares."

Bob was wrong.

Robert Schindler, January 11, 1934 – December 23, 2010

VHS for SAlE

Oh, Rimpy, how do you find so many improperly used lowercase L's?  Rimpy explains for this classic SAlE sample:

There was supposed to be an A at the beginning of the first line, but it must have fallen off. The other side of the sign said basically the same thing, plus the name of the business (ALL THE BEST VIDEO), with all uppercase Ls in their proper form. I guess this depleted their store of uppercase Ls, and they had to resort to the old uppercase I for L trick for the other side. 

TEFlON

Repeat offender outer Rimpy submits a new find from Home Depot, which is apparently becoming a depot for improperly used lowercase L's. I'm not sure how DuPont would feel about their TEFlON brand being misrepresented like this. Without the uppercase L, it's just plain old POlYTETRAFlUOROETHYlENE.

OlD People

I spotted this graffiti on the Williamsburg Bridge a while ago: OlD people think, adult's assume, kid's know. Know what? Not how to use apostrophes for plurals vs. possessives, that's for sure. This was probably written by one of Williamsburg's finest.

PlANTATION Hesitation

Visiting my niece, Lola, in Boynton Beach, Florida, we took her to The Girls Strawberry U-pick for some fresh hydroponically grown fruit. In what might be a case of limited word space, this PINEAPPlE PlANTATION sign with its crammed-in lowercase L's hung above the entrance to a section of the small farm, swinging eerily in the wind as ominous storm clouds rolled in. Little Lola was unaware of the sign and its foreboding message — at just two years old she's too young to understand. We steered clear of the pineapples and made a hasty exit after picking a few strawberries. One day Lola will learn about our country's embarrassing history with the PlANTATIONS of the south, but for now, ignorance is bliss.

UPDATE 1/21/09: Also reported this case of Apostrophe Abuse at the strawberry farm.

BURl IVES

Image captured by Matt Garvey

In the spirit of the holiday season just passed I'm posting this Christmasy screen capture. Remember the old stop motion animated television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Buddy Haskill pointed me toward this title card in the intro, "BURl IVES SINGS". You can watch the movie on YouTube, but do it quick before Google catches it and takes it down ... not because of the copyright issue, but because of the appalling use of a lowercase L in BURl's credit.

POlICING the POlICE

Next time you find an improperly placed lowercase L and are tempted to fill in its lower rung with a marker, be warned, there may be consequences. Friend and honorary lowercase L reporter Meir Taub found this article about an overzealous self-appointed grammar police:

PHOENIX - When it comes to marking up historic signs, good grammar is a bad defense.

Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year. They had removed an extraneous apostrophe and added a comma to the sign.

Read the rest of the story: Grammar police punished for 'fixing' rare sign: Self-styled vigilantes wiped out errors on signs across the United States

OlD 95

After spotting WOlFIE Van Halen's guitar and an offbeat poster for The Who with Roger DAlTRY, chalk up another lowercase L for reader Gary C., this time in Collingwood, Melbourne. Found in the Gem Bar, you can order an EMERSON'S OlD 95, but the locals might think you're making fun of their Australian accents. And the price is $ll ... isn't that $5050 in Roman numerals?

WAlK-INS

Lowercase L reader Jeff muses,

Thanks for doing this blog. I was delighted to find it because this enigma has perplexed me for years. I mean, what's so hard about case consistency, especially with the "L"? I like to muse about what some of these people would do with words like "willing", and "hillbillies". I see the phenomenon a lot in the grafitti of my co-workers, but I think I'll stick to signs like this one. It was on the Boston Post Road in Old Saybrook, CT. The other side was correct, but was clearly written by somebody else.

Thanks, Jeff, and WAlK-INS like this one are certainly welcome.

OlD POST PUB

Missoula, Montana artist Marc Moss made my day with this colorful contribution:

The Old Post Pub in Missoula, MT has some great lowercase ls. They originate from the chalkboard above the bar that displays which beers they have on tap. The artist dissed The Kettlehouse, Blackfoot Brewing Company and Flathead Lake Brewing Company. (All 3 breweries have great beer, BTW).

In addition to the bastardized brewery names, you'll do a double-take with DOUBlE HAUl IPA, and freeze with terror at the sight of COlD SMOKE.

Second DElIVERY Attempt

A few months ago I discovered this DElIVERARY note here on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, arguably one of the best and most bizarre examples of lowercase L misuse to appear on this blog. Well, the author of the original note has struck again, and it looks like old handwriting habits are hard to break. If Avi writes his own signs, at least he has learned how to spell DElIVERY correctly since his last note. But, unfortunately, he still hasn't realized just how inappropriate it is to place a lowercase L next to all uppercase letters, especially an uppercase i. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, though, if it turns out his name is really AVL KRAVLTZ.

Rock & ROll

Reader Gary Chapman found this one-of-a-kind beastly guitar, hand-painted by Eddie Van Halen and his 14 year old son, WOlFiE. Eddie may have been hot for his teacher, but it seems he wasn't paying attention to her during penmanship lessons. Actually, this example ain't the worst that I've seen (can't you see what I mean?), since the W is bigger than all the other letters, and the "i" is actually dotted, which makes the lowercase L less confusing.

I think of all the education that I missed. But then my homework was never quite like this.

Lowering the SAlTY Bar

Finally, evidence that the lowercase L phenomenon reaches beyond New England. This one comes all the way from next to Old England ... WAlES, to be exact! Wendy Wong tells us more about her find:

Thought you might enjoy this sign from Mumbles Pier near Swansea, Wales. It's also near Catherine Zeta Jones' house.

At first I thought it might have been a Welsh word, but I double checked with the friend I was with and there were also several SALTYs written on the bar itself.

Swansea is also the home town of a former UK Big Brother contestant who was famous for saying "I like blinking, I do." No wonder they don't have much of an intellectual reputation.

Is there method to the madness in this example? It looks like the author may have realized he was running out of space before he finished writing SAlTY BAR, which would also explain the hanging "R" at the end of the line. But placing an uppercase "L" close to an uppercase "T" with a bit of creative kerning would have done the job nicely, without all the lowercase L confusion.

Well, Great Britain, now that we've got your attention, please continue to float your lowercase L's across the pond.

OlD News

Hidden deep in the shadows of a small, dark server closet at a new client's office, I found this short and sweet lowercase L on a box containing an OlD UPS battery. I'm glad they didn't follow the instructions to Dispose of the evidence, as was suggested on the box top, because this hidden treasure is now the second OlD case on file.

Workout CAlENDAR

Visiting the family for the holiday weekend in my sleepy hometown of Vineland, NJ, lowercase L's were the last thing on my mind, especially after a belly full of Thanksgiving turkey and more in-laws' kids than you could shake a stick at (legally). But once the l-Tryptophan wore off, I joined my sister and mom at the local fitness center. Looks like I can't escape the lowercase L phenomenon, even on holiday. This whiteboard fitness class calendar is in a class all to itself. Notice the two occurrences of SCUlPT, with a normal SCULPT in between. Did the class planner realize his mistake in November 3, correct it in November 10, but go back to his old ways for November 17? I suppose this could be another example of squeezing the L to save space, but the beauty of whiteboard is that you can easily correct your mistakes.

Anyway, I'm glad I caught this gem on the way in, because the shock supercharged my body with adrenalin, and I had a great workout.

And cheers to my blogging mate, PD Berger back in Brooklyn, who also had a fantastic Thanksgiving run!

Out with the OlD

Out of context, this box could read "old" or "oid", not sure. I'm assuming it says "old" because a) "oid" is not a real word, and b) here in Brooklyn, in the days immediately following the first of the month, you will find the sidewalks cluttered with lots of stuff that people have put out to the curb after moving into their new apartments. This box was probably used by a tenant to separate his "OlD" junk from the things he wanted to keep.

I like the way "OlD"? is written in quotes and with a question mark, as if the writer intended to draw attention to his own bizarre usage of lowercase L!