Hotel signage can be a rich source of linguistic errors. This example from the lifts at the Mantra at Sydney Airport contains a common corker: ‘separate’ spelled with an extra E as ‘seperate’.
You’d think the error would be picked up by spell checking, but evidently not.
My inner pedant also doesn’t like the application of full stops here. It’s OK to ignore these in a bulleted list, especially if the items aren’t full sentences.
However, as soon as you have included one, you need to use it on every sentence. The rule used here is evidently “no punctuation on the last sentence in a list”. That’s appalling, frankly.
On top of that, the list of items to recycle is awkwardly structured. What we’re given is this:
Don’t retire your paper/cardboard, plastic and cans/metal early.
The evident intention is to group three broad types of items: paper/plastic/metal.
But it reads as paper/cardboard+plastic+cans/metal instead.
A better way to phrase it would be:
Don’t retire your paper/cardboard/plastic/cans/metal early.
And while we’re at it, the PLANET LOVIN’ subhead should really be a different size and weight for emphasis, and it should be aligned with the Mantra logo.
Accuracy matters.
Mind Your Language is an occasional series where I provide nit-picking advice on writing. Language always changes and evolves, but that doesn’t mean anything goes.
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