“Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will Texas State”

These guys are my heroes. Here’s the link to their web site, though it’s been stripped pretty bare for now — not surprising, since it’s apparently what helped get them caught.

Who hasn’t wanted to take out a sharpie and correct egregious errors on signs? Anyone who was forced to stroll by the mangled syntax of the one quoted above can sympathize. A question for you San Marcos folks — is that sign still there?

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7 Responses to “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will Texas State”

  1. steve says:

    I’d heard about these guys, too. In the article I read, they were called “Kerouacs with Sharpies.”

    And no, the sign is not there any more.

  2. Sarah Peters says:

    I don’t know about that Kerouac reference. As I recall, Kerouac wasn’t big on grammar.

  3. Sarah Peters says:

    Hey, Stuff White People Like has pics of these guys. Also, they ask the question: what will white people do once all the mistaken grammar has been corrected?

    http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

  4. dhadbawnik says:

    That site is hilarious. It’s funny, cuz i was thinking about writing something on Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in Tropic Thunder — wonder what their take on that would be?

    As for Keroauc: was it grammar he wasn’t big on, or punctuation? I’m sure he would never have written a sentence like “rome / texas state.”

  5. steve says:

    Kerouac was obsessed by grammar, and punctuation. He apparently delayed publication of one of his books because the typesetter did not follow Kerouac’s rules for dashes and hyphens.

  6. Sarah Peters says:

    Steve: he may have been obsessed with it, but he did not follow conventional grammar/punctuation or think it was as important as pure expression. Undiluted expression was his lodestone.

    Which is why he perpetuated the myth: “On the Road, completed — from start to finish — in only three weeks. And I used just one long, scrolled piece of paper, improvising endlessly, just like a jazz musician caught up in the excitement of spontaneous creation.”

    Those guys do not seem the type to free write; Kerouac does not seem the type to go around correcting grammar on hand-painted signs.

  7. Sarah Peters says:

    Dave,

    I saw Tropic Thunder, too. Yeah, you should write about that phenomena wherein white people try to act “black.”

    I remember this guy from Wayne State days who went around basically pretending he was black. Until one day, he decided to “embrace his native American heritage.”

    Also, I wasn’t trying to say Kerouac would have written a sentence like the “Rome/Texas State” one, but I don’t see him correcting it either.

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