> I don't know about locals in *your* area, but the sight of a misplaced apostrophe always drives *me* seriously nuts. There's something even worse, though, on a restaurant sign I go past every day on the way to work. This has nothing to do with spelling or punctuation, it's just so... so... arghh. The restaurant in question is a small and nasty Japanese eatery in a rather low-rent part of town, and it has a *huge* sign featuring a giant painting of a shark, and the name of the restaurant: The Hungry Bear. Yep. *Bear*. As in, an animal which is *not* a shark.
>
> Every time I look at this sign it hurts. Didn't they *know* what a bear was? Didn't they know what a *shark* was? Did they happen to have a giant painting of a shark which they wanted to use, and simply couldn't be bothered changing the name to "The Hungry Shark"?

Heheheheheh. C'mon B-G, give 'em a break. Don't you know from The Language Barrier (on Things People Said) that non-English-speaking countries may not have the same cultural references as we do... but nevertheless, they love to toss out English word salad -- even if the words don't have the same meanings we accept -- because English adds a certain... oh I don't know... well a certain worldly flair to everything.

Just think: maybe the Shark is considered by some Japanese as "The Starving Bear of the Sea," as taken from some ancient, venerable work of classical poetry we ignorami don't know about. For example, I do know that the "Mountain Whale" (yama-kujira) is the fanciful name for meat of the wild boar. Thus it's not entirely improbable The Hungry Bear was a similar occurrence... *muffled snicker*

But, if it really bugs you, try copying down the Japanese characters that represent the "real" name of the restaurant, and then show this to Stephen or gremlinn007. Just so you can see what the owners really intended.

Wolf "Of course, you could always show the sheet to one of those tourists doing interminable bus tours of the South Island" spirit