The Importance of Syntax

Every weekday, I deliver the shockingly abysmal local newspaper to most of downtown, including the big brick building housing the municipal offices, public health centre, etc.  The latter deals largely with check-ups and vaccines and, outside it, is this big folding table with literature in English and Spanish on a variety of issues ranging from diabetes to why it's a good idea to vaccinate your children (seriously, Precious will NOT get autism!  And if by some weird fluke she does, it's a hell of a lot better than dying!) to STIs.

This literature takes the form of pamphlets, posters, and the occasional small booklet.  For my own sanity, I ought not look at these things.  They're not as awful as I at first feared them to be - some folks obviously sprayed them with punctuation grapeshot, but that's about it and, sadly, that's far better than I've come to expect out of anything short of a professionally published book.*



Because I'm a well-adjusted adult, I have a favourite screwy public health poster.  It hung there basking in the dubious glory of florescent lights for the first couple weeks I worked this route, then vanished into the ether.  Yesterday heralded its triumphant return.

It's not a terrible sign, really.   No stray apostrophes or extraneous quotation marks mar its visage, nor did any bright spark decide to use an obscure term just because it sounds cool.  The only thing wrong with it is a syntax error - not even a technically wrong syntax error, as it still parses.

Holy carp, though, does it ever provide an example of why technically right isn't always practically right!  Here's the part I'm talking about, which is printed quite large and bold in the middle of the poster:

"STI - 

HPV

HIV

BRYAN WHYTE**

CLINICAL TESTING."

I really wonder what Bryan Whyte thinks of this.  Has anyone told  him he's apparently a severe STI? So many questions present themselves, and they could all be prevented by a simple rearrangement, such as putting "Bryan Whyte Clinical Testing" before the rest.  Then again, the sign wouldn't be half so funny after that.

*A professionally published ink-and-paper book.  Some seriously bizarre things slip through on e-books.  I wonder if the editors actually put them there to mess with us or if they're just that careless in the electronic medium.

**You know the drill.