What’s the big deal?

We stopped at a fast-food place where, when you buy a burger, you get to put the mustard and ketchup on yourself. We also bought a side salad and got to pour the French vignette dressing on ourselves.

It was one of those days, when we could smell fall in the air and the change in temperature and climate made us want to go out for a snack rather than cook at home. I guess you could say we were out to butter our own nests.

My wife ordered a drink that’s dispensed from a self-service fountain, and decided on lemonade. One sip and she realized she’d gotten Gatorade instead. So, she mustard all the politeness she could to call attention to the Gatorade-lemonade confusion. “Oh, it’s really Gatorade. We ran out of lemonade, but everybody knows what it is,” the teeny-bopper explained to Bonnie.

Once we got over the annoyance in our receiving something other than what we ordered, we became amused and set out to spot similar kinds of misinformation in other places as well.

Communication: Does it really matter? I’ve noticed lately that many believe there’s “no big deal” to being imprecise. For example, years ago, Highlands used to have what we called “tank registration,” which was a two-day ordeal that packed the entire student body into Stu Clark Gym for registration. For the most part, the earlybirds got the choice courses, as the rule generally was first come-first served.

That’s fine, but students with last names close to the front of the alphabet became, by default, the early birds, whereas the Trujillos, Vigils and Zamoras — well, we got the leftovers.

My department was journalism. I went up to my station, where someone had prepared a long vertical sign that read “Journalish.” “Journalish”?

A bit of Wite-Out might have cleared up the obvious typo, but that time, all the signs were white-on-black. I brought up the matter with the person in charge, who seemed upset and blamed it on a work-study whose forte was not spelling. But as she reluctantly made the spelling fix, her manner seemed to be asking, “What’s the big deal?”

What was the big deal? After all, we’re only a university. As an unrepentant comma chaser, I’ve probably reduced the number of my friends to zero. I readily identify with human spell-checkers like Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, who toured public places, making corrections on misspelled signs. They were members of the Typo Eradication Advancement League.

So thorough was their work that they were even banned for a year from entering any national park after having been charged with vandalizing signs at the Grand Canyon.

Was it vandalism? They were merely making corrections, and came armed with Sharpies, erasers, adhesive tape and righteous indignation.

Is it a big deal to print the wrong year on the front page of a tri-weekly newspaper, as we did last week? We ran “2012” under the logo and didn’t snap until an alert reader called Joseph Baca at KFUN to reveal our boo-boo, which Baca broadcast.

We messed up, although I’d like to say that by being off by a year, we turned that day’s edition of the Optic into a collectors’ item. It’s unfortunate that spell-checkers don’t see digits as typos.

The typo isn’t by any means the only peril plaguing professional proofreaders. Sometimes the words are spelled correctly, but they’re expressed wrong. For example, a newspaper, touting the educational aspects of a new museum, carried this: “You can see many exquisite statues walking around the museum.” And quite often we read about state statues of limitations.

Elsewhere, we read this announcement: “Important Notice: If you are one of hundreds of parachuting enthusiasts who bought our Easy Sky Diving book, please make the following correction: On page 8, line 7, the words ‘state zip code’ should have read ‘pull rip cord.’”

In a fast-food eatery: “If your order is not satisfactory, please return the product to the counter and we will replace it with a smile.”

And in committee meetings, we sometimes hear, “I’m going to give you a ballpoint figure.”

Equally irritating are certain industries, such as airlines, which couch terms with such warm fuzzies that consumers tend to overlook certain perils. Notice that on airlines, life preservers are now flotation devices, and a bag one upchucks into is a discomfort container.

We sugarcoat hosts of terms. Rob Kyff, the Internet Word Guy, has provided a list of such terms. Try to match them and submit them. I’ll provide the answers next week.

Terms: 1) slumber box; 2) industrial action; 3) spend a penny; 4) irregularity; 5) rightsizing; 6) impaired; 7) revenue enhancement; 8) armed reconnaissance; 9) birthday suit; 10) negative contribution; 11) handyman’s special; 12) lower ground floor; 13) correction; 14) leverage; 15) holiday ownership; 16) correctional facility; 17) self-deliverance; 18) entourage; 19) negative patient care outcome; 20) public assistance; 21) interfere with; 22) hang paper; 23) police action; 24) motion discomfort; 25) cash flow problem

• • •

Meanings: A) sycophants; B) tax increase; C) suicide; D) coffin; E) death; F) dilapidated house; G) urinate; H) welfare; I) laying off workers; J) borrow; K) nakedness; L) drop in stock prices; M) constipation; N) prison; O) financial loss; P) assault sexually; Q) war; R) be broke; S) labor strike; T) drunk; V) bombing; U) pass bad checks; W) time share; X) car, sea or air sickness; Y) cellar

• • •

As part of the no-big-deal phenomenon, I used a few expressions incorrectly. There not hard to find. Its easy to spot them.

• • •

San Miguel County has been blessed with at least two fine employees: Blas Duran and his predecessor, Val Valencia, convenience center operators at Camp Luna.

Blas retires Saturday. He served more than four years in the job; he’s liked by all; he’s friendly, hard-working and ambitious. He greets people, and helps them unload their trash. We wish him many happy years of retirement and commend those who hired him.