A British student took action when she noticed a Wendy’s fast food restaurant made an apostrophe error in their signage.
The Wendy’s fast food chain has corrected an apostrophe error at one of its London locations. A sharp-eyed student and apparent grammar enthusiast spotted the error and reported it to the company.
ITV reported the student, who attends Hayes Park School, the British equivalent of an elementary school noticed a missing apostrophe from the restaurant’s front sign. You can see a photo of the Wendy’s logo minus the apostrophe at their link.
“The school takes good grammar seriously and even has its own Apostrophe Protection Society,” the story states.
An Apostrophe Protection Society? Oh, yes. I mentioned it a few years back when its founder, John Richards, died at 97.
The APS, founded in 2001, has a mission to “preserve the correct use of this important, though much misused, item of punctuation,” its website states.
The ITV article quoted a portion of a letter this student wrote to Wendy’s’ corporate office:
On the weekend, with my family, whilst we were wandering around Uxbridge High Street, I was about to enter your restaurant when I stumbled upon a heinous mistake.
I was flabbergasted!
I don’t know how many elementary school students would know the word flabbergasted. I suspect even fewer would know the word heinous.
The mistake in question is that the sign out front read “Wendys” rather than “Wendy’s.”
Dave Thomas founded Wendy’s, which he named after one of his daughters, in 1969. Since the name is used as a possessive, you would have to have an apostrophe and an S after the name. But somehow, that restaurant’s signage neglected to add the apostrophe.
The company thanked her for pointing out the mistake and lauded her passion for language and standing up for what’s right. I admire her for the same things.
I hope they gave her coupons for some free burgers and certainly some free Frosty desserts!
