zoë siskos

About me
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Aug 31

Suing the 407 over bad grammar

While driving on the 407 I read the sign, “No transponder video toll charges added.” I thought, “Huh. Well, that’s nice of them. No charges!” But when i received my bill *gasp* there they were…video toll charges!!!

Well, the 407 Customer Service people kindly explained that if I do not have a transponder then I will have video toll charges added. To which I replied, “Then the sign should read, ‘No transponder? Video toll charges added.’”

Stupid me? No, stupid them. It is small (yet obviously) important pieces of the English language that allow us to communicate properly. Just one tiny little question mark changes the sentence to read some different – the exact opposite actually.

Do you think I could get back those charges over this? I may actually try. Ill let you know how it works out.

Zoe

First - in internet land things live forever so there is no such thing as "too late"

Second - I have not contacted THE 407 man..yet. Thank you for reminding me and motivating me to get off my tush.

Megan

Ok, so I'm a little behind the times, you having written this in August with me only reading it now. Inquiring minds needs to know: did you ever contact "THE 407" man? Was it really a man? And what happened???

Zoe

you all make very compelling points! i didnt think I really stood a chance but you have motivated me to actually contact "THE 407" man and get that sign changed!

soultana

leave it to you to notice something like that
way to go Zoe!!
You shoild have them change the sigh
I would be interested to know if you've done
something about it
Too many unqualified people hold responsible positions and we see stupid mistakes like that
everywhere

James

I agree with you Zoe. I think that a company as big as the 407 should be held accountable for something such as poor grammar and punctuation.

In my humble opinion, it is lax techniques like this that lead to the nonsense that you would hear in your standard rap video...which filters into our real conversations (i.e., watup yo). It's no wonder that our population is getting lazier with their vocabulary and there are so many communication issues.

I think that if you can legally hold someone that has a sign displaying items for .99 cents (meaning you only have to pay 1 cent instead of 1 dollar) you should be able to legally hold someone to their statement - regardless of the medium - due to their poor grammar. If someones signature was on the bottom of that sign, it would be a legal document, and would therefore bind them to the words that were on the document(sign).