Thrift Rift

Girl after my own heart, Shana G, submitted this curbside abomination, just in time for the holiday season. Found outside the church-run thrift shop on 96th Street in Manhattan — where I once bought a solid Samsonite wheeled luggage for $10! — Shana points out that HOlDAY could either be missing an uppercase i or an uppercase L, but either way the whole thing is a mess. I might suggest that the author, confused by his own faulty penmanship after carelessly scribbling a lowercase L, thought he had already written the uppercase i in HOLIDAY, and continued writing from that point.

And to think I once patronized this establishment!

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.

Eldorado POOl

It starts with P, rhymes with T, and that stands for TROUBLE! That's what Jeremy thinks of the POOl hall he found on West 11, just a few blocks from the VEGETABlES in Eugene, Oregon.

DOUBlE Trouble

Sarah found this DOUBlE AD SUNDAY, ironically, at the L&L Food Center in Holt, Michigan. No wonder there is PlENTY OF PARKING.

No L in our POOl

Michael A. from Newtown, MA inquires:

It's perplexing enough why someone would want to pull off the road in Newtown, Massachusetts, and pick up some "POOl WATER." But actively choosing a lowercase l out of a box of letters is a whole different ballgame from simply writing one. Why, oh, why, pool water purveyor? That takes the kind of singlemindedness and sense of purpose that our nation so sorely lacks today.

I'm wondering if that red sequence of numbers is the phone number, or the number of people who have stopped by to ask, "Why the f**k are you selling POOl WATER?"

A Rose SAlE is a Rose SAlE

Bob of sister blog Why a Tittle? reports from Route 1, north of Bath, Maine with this roadside ANNUALS and ROSE SAlE. This example just furthers my suspicion that readerboard letter manufacturers aren't distributing enough uppercase L's, as the fellow who arranged this sign seems to have started off with good intentions. Still, despite this reasonable explanation, Bob was wise in exercising caution by remaining in his car and snapping the photo from a safe distance, as you can see in the full photo below.

REAl Estate

Adam in Brooklyn found this landlord's lowercase L in the window of a real estate agency on Court Street. Is a REAl 2 bedroom apartment just as real as one written with all uppercase letters? This looks like another case of premature un-capitalization, the result of letting go of the shift key one letter too soon.

BlAH

Still feeling BlAH after the flu, but just enough energy to post this bit of NYC vandalism.

WAlGREENS

Fellow blogger Bob believes the person who spelled out the message on this reader board in Jacksonville, Florida had a choice between uppercase and lowercase L in WAlGREENS. But I'm beginning to think I've never actually seen an uppercase L used on a reader board, and the letter manufacturers may not even produce them. Perhaps they just want us to use an upside-down 7 instead. That would actually be better than using the lowercase L, I think.

The Lowercase L Depot

Lowercase L regular contributor Rimpy Rimpington returns with more tragedy from The Home Depot. When asked about the source of these lowercase L offenses, like the WASHERlESS Kitchen Faucet, and the BlOWER/TRIMMER below, Rimpy explained:

There is more than one HD associate responsible for those signs, because they come from two different stores. I do know one sign maker who sometimes uses the lowercase L, but I'm afraid to question her about it. If anyone at those stores got a hint I've been mercilessly blogging (or contributing to blogs) about them, I might be in big trouble. Besides, if they stopped doing it, a steady source of bloggable material would dry up.

Either way, Rimpy, we appreciate your dedication to the cause. Like any good anthropologist, you are making the right choice to not interfere with this natural psychological phenomenon.