Radical Agendas

By Marc Lostracco

Behind the scenes, we at Torontoist are known to pedantically and tediously debate the use of em dashes—like these—and the proper form of an ellipsis (technically, “…” is more correct than “…” See? Tedious!).
While we’re fans of splitting grammatical hairs and clearly make our own share of errors from time to time, it’s hardly as embarrassing as this conspicuous mistake printed in student agendas distributed to almost three hundred Toronto schools: as reported by the Star, students in grades 4–6 received the publication, which featured a tip sheet on “Grammer/Punctuation.”
Mind you, Toronto students are still inexplicably graduating from post-secondary institutions without knowing the difference between “your” and “you’re,” but that’s another story.
The gaffe is an embarrassment to agenda supplier Premier, which, according to its mission statement, aims “to help educators equip their students with the skills they need to succeed at school, at work and in life.” Premier has its own proofreaders, but it took a furious parent—also a professional proofreader—to bring the error to the attention of the school board.
Though some parents are bound to be outraged, we’re comfortable in assuming it was just an ironic typo that made it through Premier’s normally competent screening process. Still, how did it slip by so many vetting eyes—and the computer’s spell checker? OMG LOL, u guyz!
Photo by me and the sysop.