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This Street Vigilante Corrects Grammar In The Night Like A True Hero

By Victoria McNally | Miscellaneous | April 3, 2017 |

By Victoria McNally | Miscellaneous | April 3, 2017 |


Nobody likes a pedantic grammar nerd who thinks that correcting someone is tantamount to being smarter than they are. But to some grammarians, it’s not about the satisfaction of being right as it is the compulsion to fix that which is wrong. I don’t think you’re a bad person for putting an apostrophe in the wrong place, I promise — everybody makes mistakes, including me! Just, could you fix that one, please? Please fix it. I have to walk by the sign you have posted on your door every day, sir. It’s such an easy fix. Just print out a new one! Please.

For some small businesses, though, fixing the apostrophe placement in your sign is not easy, because you had it custom-made and you’ve got so much else going on that a minor error isn’t high on your priority list. That’s where the Grammar Vigilante of Bristol comes in, which is quite possibly the coolest name ever for the most hardcore nerd of all time.

According to the BBC, who spend a night on patrol with the unnamed man, the Grammar Vigilante has been defending the shop signs of Bristol for 13 years with his “apostrophiser,” a specially made tool that allows him to cover up or replace apostrophes on store signs. He uses stickers, so technically he’s not actually vandalizing anything — and even if he were, he argues that “it’s more of a crime to have the apostrophes wrong in the first place.”

Bless you, Friendly Neighborhood Grammar Man. Bless you.