¡PlEASE!

The PlEASE in this sign found on the bathroom door at Café Viva on the Upper West Side of Manhattan isn't as confusing as others on this blog, but it's still no excuse for using a lowercase L when an uppercase L clearly would have made more sense.

Half Off SAlE

There's a Starbucks at every corner, but this broken wooden block letter SAlE sign is a rare treat. The lower leg of the capital L broke in just the right place to make it look like an uppercase i.

Funny story, as I was taking this photo outside the Starbucks on 7th Ave. here in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a young employee came rushing out, waving his hand in front of my camera, "Sir, you can't take photos of the store!" I thought he was joking, but he wasn't. Even after I pointed out that I was on a public sidewalk and could take a photo of anything I saw, he insisted that it was store policy to not allow photos inside or outside Starbucks. It was a slow day, so I told him to prove this obscure policy to me. He went inside to get the manager while I waited outside. When he came back out, sans manager, he scowled, "The manager is too busy, it's your lucky day."

It was my lucky day ... My first wooden lowercase L block letter!

KIll Your Timid Notion

Most instances of improper lowercase L usage occur in offline, in the real world. That is why we should celebrate Dale B. and her find on the Kill Your Timid Notion 2007 website for the underground music and film festival in Scotland. If you visit the site and click on the Flash navigation arrows, you'll find the Timetable page with a most peculiar end paragraph (shown above). The use of double lowercase L's is astounding! I'll let the word "All" pass, because it is not at All confusing. But GAllERY and INSTAllATIONS are double trouble, and TAlKS has me speechless. Dale describes the ordeal as "A strange paragraph, visually speaking, but an amazing festival."

Pear-l

I want to thank Rich Magahiz for submitting one of the most perfect examples of confusing lowercase L use I have seen in a while. Found in Bergenfield, NJ, 59 cents per pound for BARTlET pears is a great price, assuming you haven't already lost your appetite at the sight of this grocer's inclusion of an illegal lowercase L.

In his e-mail, Richard also posed the question, "I am wondering why someone hasn't made a lowercase i site, for signs where all the letters are capitals, but there's a dot over each I." Well, photos of lowercase i's might make for a fun blog, but the reason we do not focus on that anomaly is because, even though the use of lowercase i's within all uppercase letters is an odd writing style, it is not confusing to read. The lowercase i cannot be mistaken for any other letter, unlike the lowercase L, which can look like an uppercase i, or even the number 1.

Key to lUNCH

If you're looking for a good deal on good eats in Brooklyn, now's the time to Dine in Brooklyn for Restaurant Week, when participating restaurants are offering lunch and dinner on a prix fixe menu of just $21.12.

But if you are looking for consistency and clarity when it comes to the letter L, this is not the week for you. Today I received the Spring issue of Best of Brooklyn, a newsletter from our Borough President, Marty Markowitz. I happen to be a fan of Marty, and I'm sure the following lowercase L offense did not happen under his watchful eye.

Take a look at the key to dining in Brooklyn. It is very simple, with an orange uppercase D for Dinner, and a green uppercase L for Lunch:

The key: Green Uppercase L = Serving Lunch
All the restaurant listings stick to the key in the printed edition, until you get to Bermuda Restaurant:

lowercase L for Lunch at Bermuda?
What happened here? As I perused the restaurant listings, I got to this entry and wondered what green uppercase "i" stood for. Did it stand for "inexpensive"? Does it mean lunch is half off? Looks like ships aren't the only thing that go missing in Bermuda. So do the bottoms of uppercase L's.

SlOW News Day

Photo by Michael Nagle for The New York Times
I never thought I'd see the day when my quest to understand lowercase L dysfunction would be taken seriously, especially by a reputable publication. But that day has come, my friends. If you can get your hands on The New York Times from the Sunday edition for March 11, you will find "A FlAW HE CAN’T OVERlOOK" in the City section!

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Emily Brady, the lovely New York Times journalist who had been assigned to my story. We spent the morning chatting about the lowercase L blog, how I got started, and where it's going. A few days later I was visited by photographer Michael Nagel, who went out with me on a lowercase L hunt. I explained that I usually do not go hunting for the L—rather, the L finds me. Luckily, we managed to find two fine examples within just a half hour on that frigid day.

The article begins:

Two summers ago, a computer consultant and cartoonist named William Levin was strolling down Seventh Avenue in Park Slope when the window of Jackrabbit Sports caught his eye. Above a display of shoes was a sign advertising marathon and triathlon training programs. An individual with an untrained eye might not have given the sign a second glance. But to Mr. Levin, the chubby capital letters contained a serious flaw.

You can read the rest of the article at the New York Times online.

Special thanks to journalist friend Paul Berger for recommending the story to The Times!

HATZOlAH

"HATZOlAH" is Hebrew for "rescue" or "relief", which is quite appropriate for this fine first example of a transliterated misplaced lowercase L! It concerns me that, in the unlikely event of an emergency at the Young Israel shul on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, confused congregants may see this as the phone number for "Hatzoiah" and not call. I could have corrected the sign with a pen, but that would have gone against the lowercase L Prime Directive, which "forbids any effort to improve or change in any way the natural course of such a society, even if that change is well-intentioned and kept completely secret." Also it was Shabbat, and writing is prohibited on Shabbat. (I did come back after Shabbat to take the photo, but I forgot a pen, and even if I had a pen, remember: Prime Directive)

Besides the lowercase L offense, look at the bigger picture. "WHATS HAPPENING?" with this bulletin board? It's missing the apostrophe in "WHATS", that's what's happening! And for some strange reason, the uppercase I is dotted, as if it may have been confused for a lowercase L, even though it was fine without the dot. Maybe that dot was supposed to be the apostrophe in WHATS.

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.

ClOSED? C'mon!

The store owner who wrote this sign apologizes for the inconvenience they may have caused us by relocating their business around the corner, but he failed to apologize for the inconvenience of being confused by lowercase L's written to look like uppercase i's. This store on 7th Avenue here in Park Slope ClOSED in November, but opened a can of lowercase L worms in the process. It even looks like the uppercase L in PLACE was an afterthought, a feable attempt to squeeze in the L's base after it had already been written in the lower case.

And I may be off topic here, but "C'MON"! Is that really a left parenthesis to encompass "Mon, Tues, Wed Nov 6, 7, 8"? Because that parenthesis looks exactly like the C in ClOSED. Also, if it is supposed to be a left parenthesis, then the author is missing a final right parenthesis after "(6, 7, 8)", leaving the outer parentheses unClOSED.

I don't think I'll be venturing around the corner to see what they have in store.

Size lABELS Matters

It's not nice to label, but it's even more not nice to write lABELS with a confusing lowercase L. This is another interesting case in which a single word contains two L's, one uppercase and one lowercase. It would make slightly more sense if the uppercase L started the word. and the lowercase L was placed second. What happened here? Did the lABEL maker realize his mistake midway through and try to redeem himself with an uppercase L?