Ron Seymour 2008-07-26 Kelowna Courier
Welcome to Vernon – A City With Grammar-Minded Graffiti Artists. Someone armed with a can of spray paint has corrected the wording on municipal signs on roads leading into the North Okanagan city. As manufactured, the big brick-and-concrete signs read Welcome Greater Vernon rather than the more familiar-sounding Welcome to Greater Vernon. Apparently exasperated by the poor grammar, vandals have added the word “to” to the signs, located on Highways 97 and 6. North Okanagan officials say the signs were improperly made in the first place. “Someone screwed up,” Garry Corner, head of the Greater Vernon Services committee, said Friday. However, it‘s unclear how the three signs came to be made with the missing word. “It‘s a bit of a mystery,” Corner said. Greater Vernon Services, a partnership involving the City of Vernon, District of Coldstream and two rural areas within the Regional District of North Okanagan, looks after such things as parks, recreation and tourism.
The signs were commissioned months ago. Corner said he didn‘t know if the contract with the sign-maker specified the exact wording, or if that was left up to discussions between the company and a now-departed GVS staff member. In any event, the signs went up reading Welcome Greater Vernon, and immediately attracted attention. “To me, it was very awkward phrasing,” said Jerry Oglow, chairman of the Regional District of North Okanagan. Nevertheless, nothing was done to change the wording on the signs – until they were hit by spray-paint vandals. “The bottom line is we are going to add the word ’to,‘” Oglow said. “We believe in proper English.”
2 comments:
The signs was ungrammatical as well as ugly. Another firm should be hired to design the sign which should reflect the beauty of the Greater Vernon area.
Who cares what bOglow thinks-his trouble is he caqn not think and Vernon does not care about him. Let us hope he is gone soon.
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