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

YOU WIll GET SHOT

I've been riding over the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn a lot, and am shocked at the number of awkward lowercase L's I've seen along the way. I spotted this one on the Brooklyn side of the bridge, and wondered about the sole unfortunate trespasser who WIll BE SHOT. Is the fellow in the picture the enforcer of this brazen street justice? Or is this actually a subversive ad for the next generation of Nintendo Wii? Either way, I recommend following the advice on the wall, and BEWARE.

DUMPING PlACE

Just in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics, Jessica J found this GARBAGE DUMPING PlACE on a train in China. This one is particularly interesting because the sign looks like it was printed using a computer type font, so the printer must have consciously chosen to use a lowercase L instead of keeping the caps lock on for the entire word. It's also worth noting that English was probably not the native written script language of the author, so the distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters might be an unfamiliar concept to him. Anyway, they certainly put this sign in the correct PlACE.

What the FlACA?

I found this interesting bit of graffiti in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, while walking with my friend Jesse. She explained that the words "Min novia FlACA Grassa" roughly translates to "My girlfriend, fat skinny lady". Coincidentally, Jesse's documentary films are all about female body image. Too bad the novia to whom this message was written might not catch the somewhat complimentary FlACA part. In fact, maybe this isn't a lowercase L at all, and it really is fiaca, which seems to be slang for laziness or apathy in Argentina. That would be doubly insulting.

A WHAlE of a Find

Lauryn found this WHAlE OF A TIME pillow, designed by Ms. Amy on Etsy.com and confessed it took all the willpower that she has to not purchase it, just because of the improperly used lowercase L. I agree with Lauryn, this is one pillow I'd actually lose sleep over.

¡HOlY FRIJOlE!

An impromptu bike ride into Red Hook, Brooklyn with Jesse turned up one of the rarest lowercase L finds ever. Sure we've seen plenty of double lowercase L's, as with this FAll SPECIAl and the LAST CAll. But never, NEVER, have I witnessed a lowercase L, followed immediately by an uppercase L, and then an uppercase i that, upon consideration, was likely dotted because something just didn't seem right. Did the author realize that the lowercase L was a mistake, so he tried recovering with an uppercase L? And then, a few days later, did some other employee, irked by the juxtaposition of the lowercase L and uppercase i, decide to dot the i? We may never know. Thank you, Viva, the quaint Tex Mex restaurant on SUlLIVAN Street, for setting this wonderful example. I thought Red Hook was isolated enough to be immune to the lowercase L syndrome, but apparently the affects are more widespread than I ever could have imagined.

So long, SCRABUlOUS

Yesterday, Facebook finally shut down the unauthorized but highly popular SCRABBLE clone, Scrabulous. The new EA Scrabble Beta on Facebook is very flashy, but I'll miss the simple and raw interface of the Scrabulous game. It had its quirks, like Kasey points out in her endgame:

I'm sitting here at work right now playing Scrabulous (kinda like Scrabble only different rules) on Facebook when I noticed a lowercase L!!! If you notice on the right the Last Move is showing as 'CABlE' and when you look at the game board, the red L is where the correct word is.

DElFT Bereft

Antonios from Astoria, NY reports back from DElFT, HOllAND with this crafty example:

Delft, Holland is known for its blue and white tile work. Because these knick knacks are sorta pricey, I opted to bring back a Christmas ornament instead. It turns out I think I might have overpaid for a Deift ornament from some place called Hoiiand.

They caught on to their mistake by the time they got to word Handgeschilderd though.

SElF SERVE BAll MACHINE

This sign for a SElF SERVE BAll MACHINE, found by Ronnie P. at a driving range in Travelers Rest, SC, isn't very self-serving when it comes to visual clarity with lowercase L's. The CAllAWAY Golf Company probably aren't very pleased with being squeezed in with lowercase L's either. This is probably a case of uppercase L shortage combined with limited space, but I personally would have tried using an upside down 7 than an uppercase i at least for SElF.

WAlK This Way

I spotted this WAlK sign, appropriately, at Walker Street and Canal in Manhattan. On the other side of this temporary walkway was an identically L deficient notice, apparently authored by the same person. If you see this sign, run, don't WAlK, to the nearest exit.