Amid the fanfare of the opening of a third lane on westbound I-66, it appears at least one detail was overlooked. Someone apparently forgot to use spell check on an interstate sign.
The auxiliary lane between Fairfax Drive and Sycamore Street opened last night, but a sign marking the exit to Sycamore Street is spelled incorrectly.
Hat tip to Clarendon Culture. Photo courtesy Aimee David.
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Oooooops!
Exit 69. Hee, hee, hee.
You spelled your own name wrong, Beavis.
Facepalm.
Butthead
The C looks crooked….almost as if some guy had it right and his supervisor had him change it. “No, I believe it’s p-o-t-a-t-o-e.”
Ouch! We will get this fixed pronto!
If you work for the county, one more tip for you: a steel plate on N. 10th in front of Jay’s Saloon is halfway falling down into the hole it is supposed to be covering. Looks like a potentially big safety issue.
Thanks for the tip, that sounds like it could be nasty.
You can report that stuff on SeeClickFix and the county will actually respond.
That’s what socialist hellholes do.
That wouldn’t be a county issue – it would be VDOT.
Let’s not be too tough on these guys. I’m sure these sign makers only have a High School diploma.
Or English in not their first language.
“In” English your first language?
Yes, but typing isn’t my first skill apparently!
You shouldn’t need to go to college to know how to spell “sycamore” though.
Why did you capitalize high school?
I abhor random capitalization.
because he went to College
I Did Too.
What’s wrong with having just a HS diploma?
It’s wrong because it would be “an” HS diploma, not “a” HS diploma.
When using an abbreviation, it is correct to use the article that corresponds to the non-abbreviated word if the non-abbreviated word is more often said.
For example, it is fine to say “I spoke with a NY senator today” because people would more often read that as “I spoke with a New York senator today”, not “I spoke with a [en]-[why] senator today”. Likewise, people reading “HS diploma” would rarely say “[aytch]-[ess] diploma”. They would more often read “HS diploma” aloud as “high school diploma”. In writing, it would then be acceptable to say “a HS diploma”.
That first sentence of the second paragraph SHOULD read:
“For example, it is fine to write…” not “say”.
The period goes inside the last quotation mark, Sam.
Awesome.
HAHAHA!! NICE MISTAKE!!
SURE – LET’S GIVE MORE MONEY FOR THE STREETCARS AND LESS FOR ARLINGTON’S SCHOOLS!!!
Oooo, cool! More random axe grinding! My favorite!!
Wait ’til I post my “it must be an illiterate illegal immigrant” rant.
I CAN”T BELIEVE THIS!!!1!! OBAMA AND HIS LIBERAL SIGN MAKING AGENDA WANTS ALL CONSERVATIVEZ TO TAKE WRONG EXIT!!!!1!!11
It’s called a “shift key.” Find it.
Government, doing what it does best, screwing up.
Because misspellings never happen in the private sector.
And how do you know this sign wasn’t made by a private contractor?
Because VDOT fabricates their own signs. They have shops throughout the Commonwealth to make, replace and repair road signs within their designated districts.
They replace signs that get damaged by accidents or vandalism. They replace signs that get stolen because they say “Lovers Lane” or some such nonsense like that. They fix or replace signs that someone puts two slugs of birdshot into. They install new stop signs when someone thinks an intersection needs to suddenly become a four way stop.
And they will send a regular maintenance crew out to fix this sign too. Nobody is getting a bill for the repair, it is covered in the operations budget of VDOT.
You can complete a VDOT work request for sign work here:
http://www.virginiadot.org/travel/citizen.asp
Good thing misspellings never happen in the private sector then.
The costs of a private sector error on this scale are typically borne by the private sector company that screwed up instead of the Virginia state taxpayers. Maybe that was his point.
No, that clearly wasn’t his point. He was clearly claiming that government makes mistakes more often.
No, there was nothing in his comment that indicated frequency of mistakes.
“Government, doing what it does best, screwing up.”
Yes, that was exactly a comment claiming that government makes mistakes more often. Couldn’t be more clear.
No, I can dribble a basketball really well, but what I do best is take it to the hoop for the and-1. I dribble much more often than that though. So the thing I do most often is dribble, but that is different from what I do best.
Sure, RS, whatever you say.
I agree with RS on this one. drax jumped to a conclusion that may or may not be correct.
If you’ve read novasteve’s past postings, then you know drax got it exactly right.
“He was clearly claiming that government makes mistakes more often.”
Wouldn’t any sensible person make that claim??
When you can’t get fired…
Look at Kev, responding to one silly generalization…with another one.
(And no, I don’t work for the government and never have).
Oh. My. God. I see this sign every day…might have to sue the County for excessive and cruel treatment by way of shoddy proofreading.
This is a VDOT sign.
Well, McDonnell said he was reforming VDOT so maybe this is part of it. Personally, I like the name Syacmore better. It’s more unique.
Unique is an absolute. There is no “more” unique or “very” unique.
Ever!
That’s usually true, I agree. I almost never make that mistake !
Heh.
It’s ok. It was a very unique mistake for you.
And UniquA is a character on the Backyardigans.
Just sayin’.
$4000 mistake…
Exactly what I was thinking.
OK, so it’s a $14.004 million dollar lane project. We will be sure to use the correct number when factoring in the per mile costs vs the streetcar.
Was any of this funded with the Stimulus funding? Or did all of Virginia’s portion of that go to the amazing highways they have in the central and southwestern portion of the state?
I think most major highway funding comes from the feds, stimulus or not.
Too funny! NOT!
Who’s paying for this mistake?
It’s still under warranty so they can just ship it back and get a new one.
Reason for Return: incorrect spelling
I am sure they can only be held to spelling it like it was set forth by VDOT on the purchase order. If they spelled it like VDOT asked, then VDOT (and the taxpayers) would be paying for the new sign.
Simply change the name of the street to Syacmore. Problem solved. Now we just have to change the street signs. Oh, no, wait…
Eye dun’t sea nuttin’ rong wiith it.
“Buy Honey, it says to veer right onto SYCAMORE street!”
what is amazing (well in a google-rules the world way) is that if you google “syacmore” you will see that this is a fairly common mistake. I’ve never heard anyone say anything other than “Syc-A-More” so not sure how it coudl be “SYAC-More”
I’m sure it coudl !
People who eat their burritos at ChipOLTe might disagree with you.
Holy s–t, a picture from Clarendon Culture that wasn’t taken with instagram…
Holy crap, a picture from Clarendon Culture that wasn’t taken with Instagram!
hahaha
She uses Instagram for her mobile pics, but to be fair, when she uses a regular camera, her photos are of really great quality.
Because every picture must have vignetting.
and not followed by a small dose of smug arrogance how taking the photo involved traveling past VA Square and Ballston.
{Mounting High Horse, Preparing to Rant}
Proofreading in general is awful these days. I’ve seen obvious and glaring mistakes on CNN, ESPN, etc. – mistakes that any third grader who’s paying attention could catch. There is so much text-speak out there that there appears to be an entire group of people who think there is nothing grammatically wrong with writing something for your boss or teacher using the same lingo you’d use if you’re texting your BFF.
{Rant over. Thank you.}
yes- I got a LinkedIn email with “Jobs You Might be Interested In” and one of the job listings had 3 typo’s in it, and it was a Fortune 500 company……
Was it for a proofreading job?
Arlington Alert:
Two right lanes on I-66 eastbound, before the Sycamore exit, will be closed during tomorrow morning’s rush hour to fix the sign.
Another sad thought is that it probably took a crew of 6 or 7 guys to hang this sign and not one of them said – hey this is spelled wrong maybe we shouldn’t hang it. So don’t just blame the sign maker.
You are a dirtbag.
This was directed at Tom’s removed comment.
I’m sort of curious what he said to generate a “dirtbag” comment!
It was a racial slur.
Which he probably misspelled too.
Looks like his attempted “respelling” (changing one vowel) didn’t go over either, and rightfully was removed.
Wow, I was joking. The dirtbag must think it’s an automatic filter. Nope. Dirtbag haters aren’t welcome here. Well, not the ones who aren’t clever enough to cloak it, at least.
Something along the lines of “It must have been a *****.” The shorter version of the changed-vowel word was used.
Yep, and then the yahoo tried to put it back in by changing one vowel. Didn’t work and was removed. Sheesh, some people didn’t have any raising, that’s for sure.
ARLnow certainly seems on top of this kind of thing. Cool.
It censors my stuff all the time and I never use offensive names for people.
Me too. I just consider it handicapping…
Still trying to figure out how this state agency error is Zimmerman’s fault…
oh it just is. you know that or you wouldn’t be asking.
Will GPS directions in vehicles make such signs irrelevant and enable reallocation of the sign money?
The sad part is that no one caught this mistake BEFORE putting up the sign. I wonder whether the “boss” of the sign shop was disciplined for this mistake?
Yeah, but that wouldn’t have merited a story and photo in ARLNOW.
It is sort of amusing to ponder just how many people missed this……
Does this matter? Most people are going from DC to places like Gainsville. Hardly anyone will know where this street is.
Good point. it doesn’t matter. Used to live over by exit 69.
trust me, our party directions ALWAYS said, ahem, “take EXIT 69″.
You misspelled “Gainesville.” LOL
Wow. Who would have thought a story about a misspelled road sign would generate 96 (97, counting this one) comments?
I assume that it was the ArlNow readership that was slamming on the brakes during this morning’s rush hour to gawk at the sign?
I’ve been through here twice since the lane was opened and haven’t noticed the sign either time. It’s amazing to drive through there at highway speed.
Ya don’t have to be smart to get a job at Traffic division.