Advertising in the form of signage printed on vehicles can be a road hazard, distracting motorists with exasperating errors and extraneous elements.

Here are photographs of seven moving violations, with commentary.



The motto painted on this truck not only commits a quintuple-overkill foul, but also is flatly incorrect. The worst infraction, beyond the extraneous quotation marks framing the message, appears to be the placement for emphasis of an additional set of quotation marks around “only.”

If one wishes to employ one set of quotation marks inside another, the interior ones—in American English, at least—should be single; in British English, the order is reversed. But here, neither set is necessary.

The worst error, however, is that the company is not the “only” overhead-door professional (note the insertion of a missing hyphen in the previous phrase); it may be the sole provider of overhead-door services in its home city, but then the motto should close with “in town.”

(via The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks)




This sign sports mild mistakes, but they’re insistently irritating, like a small burr in one’s sock. Note the extra letter spaces between the (unnecessary) open and close quotation marks bracketing “We’re Affordable.” The hyphen in “Clean-Outs” (which should be “Cleanouts”) also hangs in midair, as do the hyphens separating the elements of the phone number.

(via The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks)




There is so much wrong with this superficially satisfying vehicle signage, starting with the aesthetic. But the inexcusable error is the misspelling of “member.” Nobody at the sign shop and nobody at the client company noticed that? Really?

(via The Great Typo Hunt)




Busy, busy, busy. Too many colors, too many fonts, too many words. The key crime, however, is the common error of mistakenly styling a possessive construction as if it was a plural one. This sign implies that love flowers belong to Mom. However, the message should read, “Moms Love Flowers.”

(via Apostrophe Abuse)




No job is too small, but sometimes words are—to should be too.

(via Funnies.com)




This asininely assertive window panel proves that everyone has the right to appear stupid, too. The oddly inconsistent swelling treatment of the letters in each line might distract viewers from the unfortunate fact that “but” is amusingly misspelled and the wrong spelling of “you’re” is employed.

(via English Fail Blog)




This fortunately ephemeral expression is head-slappingly hilarious. One hopes (and presumes) that the “sineor” girl who sprayed this signage a couple of years ago—assuming she graduated—is not employed in the wordsmithing world.

(via English Fail Blog)


A version of this story first appeared on DailyWritingTips.com.