Barking Benches for World Dog Day

 It's August and I've been fetching benches for World Dog Day. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/acb/8440743183

It's hotter than a hot dog.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindajwan/2968181228

Everything is bone dry.

www.marenakos.com

You certainly don't need a scarf in this weather, even if it looks cute.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lovine/5570381585

My dog Sit is on holiday, so I asked Lord Brassica's dog Pru to help me with this post. 

Unfortunately, Pru declined. She said she didn't want to be a dogsbody. Just as well. She'd have probably made a dog's dinner of the story. 

I was going to ask these guys but I was afraid they'd be full of bull.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaymelnick/14493841782/

So I'll just scribble a few lines by myself.

Untitled, Saul Steinberg (1914-1999)

Everywhere you go in these dog day afternoons, people are sitting around on benches with their dogs.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/afrowolf/505662438

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rubyblossom/5936398594

And dogs are sitting on benches. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomwatson/3984589237

Standing on benches in this weather makes you feel dog tired.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/

It's certainly too hot to be out in the sun holding up benches.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocor/12003204125

Some dogs are so hot they have melted into the benches.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/yooperann/4620552256

A dog bench this hot will have his tongue hanging out. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/15943504434/

In hot weather it's important that dogs get enough to drink, though this guy feels that Mountain Dew isn't ideal.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoomar/167341140

Everybody's looking for shade. Under a bench will do.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/oxox/3361214036

But some benches are off limits to canines.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/qnr/

Ignore the signs and you'll find yourself in the doghouse.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtip/4849263348

On the other hand, you don't want to leave your dog out in the barking lot where it's hot.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsofan/5045765970

Dogs are resourceful. If there's no bench, a dog will seek shade under another dog.  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/olivcris/4407805072

The dog days of August are especially tough for working dogs. Though people in summer get tense and up for a fight, police dogs just want a long cold drink.

In August everybody - people and dogs - need to paws pause.

http://thequeenofcreativity.blogspot.com

This is no time to be racing round a dog track like a greased whippet bench. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nearnearfuture/317645351

It's the wrong time of year to be working as a dog bench too.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/daveclarkecb/3139284872

You don't want to have to support a lot of weight in this heat but you do need a good stretch.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14765580145/

If you're a dog, what you don't want is to be on dog watch, wearing a dog collar.

If you're employed as a pet animal companion, you don't want to be left tied to a bench somewhere.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gaensler/7725215098

And you don't want to sit doggedly while someone tries to take your picture. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsofan/

Yes, I am familiar with the dogma of dog philosophy.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsofan/

But in August the last thing you want is to fetch sticks . . . 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/michale/965041226

. . . or run around on a bench chasing a frisbee.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/momorgan/61031391

In this kind of weather, you don't want to go wild.

PG Palmer at https://www.flickr.com/photos/pgpalmer_au/9302109623

Just thinking about all this activity gives you a hang-dog feeling.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeconnolly/518848532

You don't even feel like a trip to the library.

Sure, if you're a dog, you don't mind being treated like one . . . 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wombatarama/9905586294

. . . but in August you don't want to sit, or stay, or heel. 

Or heal either, for that matter.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bcgrote/2659299640

Every dog needs a little lift at times.

www.straightlinedesigns.com

Don't worry about the carpet. Someone will come along and clean it up.

Although, it could be that the Dog Poo Fairy is on holiday right now.

image by Joanna Michalak

A dog might want to curl up with a dog-earred book.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paul-w-locke/5439761826

Or just do a few doodles.

Saul Steinberg 1960  (1914-1999)

Give a dog a break! It's National Dog Day on August 26th.

Benchdogs shouldn't be working in August.

Every dog should ask for time off. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mayu/2330358562

Even indoor dogs need a holiday from holding up benches. 

After all, they have been working like dogs all year.

http://www.dogmt.com/

Yes, the best thing to do in the dog days of August is to let sleeping dogs lie.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/12392252@N03/5120307782

Credits


If you love animals and want to see lots of brilliant animal benches, see which ones Noah saved on the Ark. 2014 is the Year of the Horse, of course, of course. If you like dog benches, then you're looking in the right place and there are more small, large and faraway dog benches at  
http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/big-bench-small-bench-cute-and-tiny.html  On the other hand, if you prefer cats, let Meredith show you some great feline benches. Maybe you like rabbits: bunnies are not just for Easter you know. Sheep? We've got some Baaaaaad ones here on Benchsite. And monkeys? We've got those too. And finally, for the Cream of Bovine Benches, let Lord Brassica show you his cows. 

The papier-mâché dog was seen in London fields in 2012 and photographed by acb, who is from Melbourne but currently lives in London. acb's albums are full of art and music events, and travel all over the world.    https://www.flickr.com/photos/acb/8440743183   

The little dog in the hot dog coat was photographed by Linda Wanless.    https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindajwan/2968181228  It was the dog's Halloween costume in 2008. Linda is a self-confessed Flickr addict. Her site is called a pieceofheaven, which gives you a clue how much she loves photography. 

A dogbone bench comes in handy when you have a lot of hungry dog benches to feed, as I did when I wrote the Noah's Ark story on Benchsite last year. The Tenino Dogbone bench is from Marenakos in Preston, Washington. They make a variety of granite dogbone and other types of benches.  www.marenakos.com  And who'd have thought a dog bone bench would be so useful? There are some very nice medical dogs on Benchsite at  http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/feelgood-medical-benches-for-world.html

Isn't it amazing what a clever artist can convey with just a few lines and scribbles? Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) was a cartoonist for many years and dogs featured regularly in his work. His lined dog and scribble-doodle dogs are my favourites. 

Paul Lovine is a corporate ninja from Manila, currently living in California. He photographed his dogs Senna and Nickell when they were hanging out on a bench in the park on a Sunday afternoon in San Francisco.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/lovine/5570381585

Pru is Lord Brassica's faithful friend, along with his horse Tonks and his beloved 1947 Landrover. Another dog here in Fribble-under-Par is my dog Sit. Sit is a brilliant swimming companion as he guards my swimming bench. He's also well known on the footpath along the river Par. You can find out who's who in Fribble-under-Par at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/whos-who-in-fribble-under-par.html

Jay Melnick lives in Colorado and he photographs a lot of dogs as ArgosPaw's. This includes the brilliant Bulldog Reunion, taken in 2014. It's not easy to get dogs lined up on a bench so it's great to see this. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaymelnick/14493841782/

Jonah photographed the man and dog sculpture in Vancouver in 2001  https://www.flickr.com/photos/afrowolf/505662438 Jonah, aka afrowolf, has an eclectic collection of albums including toys, animals, canned fruit, health rubbish and what he calls afrocrap. 

The statue of a man on a bench with a large dog beside him was photographed in 2009 by Ruby Blossom https://www.flickr.com/photos/rubyblossom/5936398594

Ruby is a wife and mother in a small town in the UK. Her passions are photography, photoshop, and her two Jack Russells.  Her albums show her love of animals, among other interesting things. 

Snoopy is a very famous dog who doesn't work for peanuts; it looks like he gets paid in chocolate chip cookies. The photo was taken by Thom Watson in 2009 at the Charles Schultz museum in Santa Rosa, California  https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomwatson/3984589237  Thom is from Virginia but now lives in California with his partner. There are lots of cats in Thom's albums.

Wonderlane from Seattle is one of my early contacts for benches. She is simply wonderful. In this story I have used a photo of her lovely dog Rosie, who is standing on a bench in Seattle. Wonderlane travels widely in places like Tibet and Nepal and her work is an inspiration  http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/ 

The Dog Bench is a mixed media sculpture by Roy DeForest, an American painter (1930-2007). The dog bench was made in 2000 for the University of California Davis, where he worked. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocor/12003204125

Of course the dog bench is not melting; it's mosaic dogs, which look to be highland terriers. It was photographed by Ann Fisher in Chiciago in 2010 at the Block 37 building.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/yooperann/4620552256

Mike Cogh lives in Adelaide and photographed the thirsty dog bench at Hove, Adelaide in the bright summer of January 2015. The bench is a public art piece by Rob Garrett. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/15943504434/    Mike has an extensive set of over 800 Humble Bench photographs at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/ 


Zoomar lives in Seattle and likes pugs.  His albums are full of them, including Roscoe. He took the photo of the pug with the empty drinks bottle on a bench way back in 2006. And in 2009 he took photos of an intriguing Hippo Pumpkin Event. The mind boggles.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoomar/167341140  

OxOx lives in Portsmouth in the US and photographs a lot of animals, including dogs. The dog asleep under a bench was in Thailand in 2009, https://www.flickr.com/photos/oxox/3361214036  Flickr has a group for every kind of photograph: this photo is in the Let Sleeping Dogs Lie group. 

Terry Ross, aka qnr, is a retired military man now living in Corpus Christi, Texas. He describes his work as 'a little photo dump' which is not art, but just his way of inconveniencing electrons. He loves to take photos with little concern for technique and they come straight off the camera/scanner. This includes the photo of the bench with the no dogs sign https://www.flickr.com/photos/qnr/

The cat in the doghouse is Billy, who should probably not be here, since it's a cat picture rather than a dog one and we already have a Cat Bench story on Benchsite.  The photo is by CelloPics in 2010 at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtip/4849263348  I know nothing about Billy or CelloPics but I have to say that I have rarely seen such a collection of beautiful cats, all beautifully photographed. And I am reliably told that the doghouse is now occupied by a rather splendid beagle puppy.

The barking lot sign, the dog philosophy sign, and the German shepherd dog having a photo taken are all from MTSO fan John, aka MTSOfan.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsofan/   John is a pastor who says that photography isn't just a hobby; it's his attempt at sanity, a diversion in a life with much responsibility, and also a way of looking at the world.      

Mexican Xoloitzcuintle dogs have been around for 3,500 years. The trio of Xoloitzcuintles was photographed by Christiano Oliveira in Mexico City in 2009  https://www.flickr.com/photos/olivcris/4407805072  And elsewhere on Benchsite there is a fabulous fiesta of Mexican benches.

The police dog drinking through a straw was something I found in a window of a shop in Sandown, Isle of Wight. You don't often find objects d'art in Sandown so it was lucky I had my camera with me. Strangely, I saw another dog like this in a window in Barcelona some months later.

The pawprint benches were photographed by Kate Robertson from Idaho Falls. Kate is the Queen of Creativity. She describes herself as a painter, mixed media artist, weaver, spinner and writer. Besides that, she photographs all kinds of stuff wherever she goes on her creative pursuits. She is a Kaizen-Muse creativity coach and she has loads of ideas on how to get your creative mojo working. She has various blogs; I first saw her at http://thequeenofcreativity.blogspot.com

Régine Debatty from Liege claims to make money, not art, but nevertheless her Flickr site is full of art. It's the kind of Flickr site where I get distracted and waste vast amounts of time looking at pictures and following up artists and exhibitions I've seen there. I can't blame Régine for this, can I? There are several whippet benches around, mostly with the same whippet ends as this photo by Régine  at   https://www.flickr.com/photos/nearnearfuture/317645351

The long and skinny person on a dog bench is an image from page 104 of The union Bible dictionary, for the use of Schools, Bible classes, and families (1837). Its author is Frederick Adolphis Packard (1794-1867) and it was published by the American Sunday-school union. It comes from The Library of Congress at https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14765580145/

The two elegant guard dogs wearing collars were photographed outside a house in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. It used to be a chapel, now it's a lovely house with a lovely garden and I guess these dogs keep the vandals away. We don't have vandals here on Paradise Island. Do they have vandals on the Isle of Wight? I'm not sure. 


The stone dog benches are at Kok Lok Si Buddhist temple in Georgetown, Malaysia. These and the monkey benches are very popular photographs for visitors such as David Clarke, who is a retired farmer, photographer, greeny, and bush philosopher from Clare Valley, Australia. His albums are full of travel to Vietnam and Malaysia and life in the bush, including bushfires, animals and eucalypts.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/daveclarkecb/3139284872

I love the photo of the patient dog and the coloured seats. Kay Gaensler from Germany took it at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein in 2012.  Kay says that the dog was tied to that bench while the owner was inside the building and the dog was targeting the entrance to the building to see if the owner was coming back. Beautiful dog, beautiful photo!  https://www.flickr.com/photos/gaensler/7725215098    

Michael McCauslin is a well travelled fourth grade teacher in San Francisco. His albums are full of travel to all sorts of places. The little dog drawing on a bench with a stick was photographed in 2007  https://www.flickr.com/photos/michale/965041226

The African Wild Dog was photographed by Kieran Palmer, a writer and nature photographer from Australia. He takes gorgeous photos of all kinds of creatures at   https://www.flickr.com/photos/pgpalmer_au/9302109623 in 2013. It's not wild though: it was photographed at Western Plains Zoo, Dubbo in New South Wales Australia

The painted dog bench with the frisbee was taken in Chicago 2005 by Mo Morgan  https://www.flickr.com/photos/momorgan/61031391 Mo lives in London and has albums of Iceland, Palma, Chicago, Pembrokeshire and his brain. 

Joe Connolly from Wales has some beautiful basset hounds, including this one with a hang dog look. Joe took this photo in 2007. His site, so far, is still lifes, and life stills   https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeconnolly/518848532

Wombatarama from Wales is a freelance writer and unemployed zookeeper. She loves pugs. Oh yes, she certainly does. Her own pugs are Rose and Lily but she goes to Japan as a pug herself and her album is full of them. The three pugs on a bench are at  https://www.flickr.com/photos/wombatarama/9905586294

bcgrote lives in California and has way too many interests, including animal photography. Sit Stay Heal is a bench from the Gaslamp District of San Diego, where she comes from. It was photographed in 2008 in front of the Gaslamp Hilton 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bcgrote/2659299640

The lifted leg dog bench is actually a table: it's called Bad Table. It's one of many flabbergasting designs made by Judson Beaumont at Straight Line Designs Inc. in Vancouver.  None of these designs are straight lines; each one throws a wobbly in an entirely different way  www.straightlinedesigns.com   This amazing work has already appeared on Benchsite when the dogs on Noah's Ark didn't behave themselves.

There's no such thing as the Dog Poo Fairy appears on stickers all over the Isle of Wight, and probably elsewhere. This one was photographed by Joanna Michalak. 

The dog reading a dog-earred paperback book is by Paul Locke, whose albums are full of sporting events and marathon  https://www.flickr.com/photos/paul-w-locke/5439761826   Paul claims that the book the dog is reading is poetry by ee cummings: I'll have to take his word for it.

The woodwork benchdogs are old clip art from my two husbands' workshop and there's quite a story about woodwork benches here on Benchsite.  Mungo did O Level woodwork (grade C) but His Excellency's workbench wonders are about as successful as his attempts at chemistry. You can read all about it at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/workbench-wonders-two-husbands-lots-of.html

The shiny black dog bench is from Mito, the capital city of Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan. The photographer is Mayu Shimizu, who comes from Tokyo and San Francisco and is a graffiti explorer. Next time I have a free day I'm going to spend it looking at Mayu's albums  https://www.flickr.com/photos/mayu/2330358562  

The two stately Labradors were chosen for Noah's Ark. They were made by Stephen Huneck, a self-taught sculptor who carved by hand. The Stephen Huneck Gallery is at Dog Mountain, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. http://www.dogmt.com/  Dog Mountain is set on a 150 acre private mountaintop and is always open to people and their dogs. Its unspoiled haven is covered with hiking trails and dog ponds. There is no leash law on Dog Mountain: dogs are not just welcome here, they are cherished! Dogs are free to run, play, swim and best of all meet other dogs! Stephen's artworks, include paintings, sculptures, books, and a Dog Chapel, "A place where people can go and celebrate the spiritual bond they have with their dogs. It is the largest artwork of my life and my most personal." Stephen died in 2010 but his love of dogs lives on in his artwork.

The dog sleeping on a bench in the black and white photograph at the end of the story was seen in Bangkok. It was photographed by Ronn, aka Blue Aldaman in 2010. https://www.flickr.com/photos/12392252@N03/5120307782  Ronn currently lives in Thailand and has albums full of beautifully photographed portraits and slices of life in Thailand, many of them in black and white. 

National. Punctuation, Day! Benches?

   How's your grammar and punctuation?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/drachmann/327122302/

Do you know what quotation mark benches are for? 

www.tabisso.com

Have you made your peace with apostrophes?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kimonomania/474758933/

Eddie, my Inner Editor, who just happens to be a primate: You refer to apostrophes here but then you show a question mark. That's confusing. 

Sorry, Eddie. I'm just trying to introduce National Punctuation day, which is on September 24th. And National Grammar Day, which was on March Forth.

Eddie: Wrong forth.

Sorry, Eddie. Your right. It's fourth. As in 4th. 

Eddie:  Wrong your. 

Right again! It's YOU'RE, short for you are.

Eddie: I know that. I'm a grammar guy. It's best to begin with a picture of me.

Here's the (inevitable) picture of you.

Eddie: I notice that you've used parentheses here.

Yes. As regular readers of Benchsite will know, I'm very fond of good grammar and correctly-used punctuation. 

His Excellency, one of my husbands: This looks like it's going to be a heavy punctuation crossing.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kt/8741169/

Tamsin, a local girl who works in the Not Quite Good Enough pharmacy:  I've never understood punctuation. I have a lot of questions about it. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/86979666@N00/7623744452/

Well, then you're like lots of people, Tamsin. That's what National Punctuation Day is for. 

Lord Brassica, Fifth Earl of Drizzly: Do we really need a whole day for it? I'd have thought a minute or two would do.

There's a lot of punctuation to get through, Lord B. There's the colon and the semi-colon and hyphens and exclamation points and ellipsis . . .

Eddie: And of course the question mark, which is often used incorrectly.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/f-oxymoron/9647624750/

His Excellency: I see you are illustrating this with a cross-section of the public.

Lord Brassica: He doesn't look cross to me. He looks like a topnotch chap.

Eddie: This is President Obama, my long-standing friend.

Lord Brassica: Really? How long has he been standing?

His Excellency: You have your work cut out for you on this one, Seashell.

I  know. But I dream of a world where subjects and nouns agree, where homonyms are used properly. Where there are no dangling participles. 

Dreams 1896, Vittorio Corcos (1859-1933)

His Excellency: I share your dream. This woman is beautiful, thoughtful, and well read. 

Lord Brassica: I'm no reader but I do fancy a woman on a bench. 

Readers of this blog should be assured that they will not be judged on their beauty. Or their use of grammar and punctuation.

Eddie: Yes, they will.

Monkeys As Art Judges, Gabriel von max, 1889

Tamsin: Golly, I'd better find a book and look up some questions. 

Lord Brassica: I read a book once. It was blue.

His Excellency: I have a philosophical question to pose.

Tamsin: I have a question to two too. Is it ok to stand on a bench with a question mark on your head?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcobellucci/3534516458/

Lord Brassica: Of course not. Standing on furniture is always bad manners what?

You can't have a question mark here, Lord B because the word 'what' is not a question in this context. 

Lord Brassica: I can jolly well have a question mark wherever I please. If Her Majesty doesn't bestow one on me, I am in a position to purchase one. Harrods do a nice line in question marks I'm told. 

Maybe we should have some Q&As.  

Lord Brassica: In my day it was Ps and Qs. You had to mind them or you'd get a clip around the ear. 

Let's just stick with the and then.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/edgeplot/364284317/

Lord Brassica: This is the kind of hour-glass figure I enjoy seeing on the female form. My wife has a figure like this. 

Punctuation please. 

His Excellency, my husband: There are different levels of punctuation. I, of course, am highly conversant to the highest level of the Punctuation Pyramid.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kardon/2246419748/

May I quote you on that?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/plainkacyjane/2254145743/ 

Some people are sticklers for punctuation. The self-confessed punctuation geek Lynne Truss had a hit in 2004 with a book about punctuation.  

Tamsin: I know that joke: a panda bench walks into a restaurant. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artompotamus/

He orders a bamboo sandwich and he eats shoots and leaves.

Eddie: No. A panda walks into a restaurant . . . 

http://www.larcobaleno.com/

Golly, Eddie, this is some panda bench!

Tamsin: These pandas are soooooo cute!

His Excellency: This is a Panda Banquette.

Eddie: I'll start again.

A panda banquette walks into a restaurant and orders a sandwich, after which he takes out a gun, fires two shots into the air, and exits. 

In other words, he eats, shoots and leaves.

Lord Brassica: I'd have that blighter arrested if he's going to fire a gun in restaurants. 

Tamsin: I guess he didn't like the sandwich? 

You're missing the point. Whether that panda is bamboo-eating or gun-toting all depends on a single comma. 

His Excellency: I am partial to wildlife but I detest violent commas. 

Eddie: As a professional editor I advocate a Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

Tamsin: Me too. I hate it.

His Excellency: The Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa argued that even to have touched the feet of Christ is no excuse for mistakes in punctuation. 

I think you'd better find a bench and do your punctuation sudoko.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/purplepenning/9526323256/

Lord Brassica: Good heavens! I don't think we had all this when I was at school.

Of course you did. Grammar and punctuation have been around as long as written language.

Tamsin: We had it. My school was a Centre of Excellense. 

Eddie: This would be a good opportunity to show a pencil bench.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hanneorla/8243041006 

Good point, Eddie. You're very sharp.

Eddie: Yes. I'm the Keeper of the Apostrophe.

And I'm the Queen of Commas. 

Tamsin: What exactly is a comma?

Here's a little verse to help you remember:

A cat has claws at the ends of its paws.

A comma's a pause at the end of a clause.

Tamsin: Cats are so cute and fluffy! 

Tombili again

Lord Brassica: What's all this nonsense about cats? I've got milking to do. Let's bring this chat to a stop. 

A full stop? 

Eddie: How do you feel about fullstop benches?

This is not a sentence so there is no reason whatsoever that it should have a fullstop. 

Eddie: You're ok with the capital B though. 

Of course. Capital letters are for proper nouns. 

Lord Brassica: In my house hounds behave quite properly.

I said NOUNS! 

Eddie: You're getting quite worked up, Seashell. You need a break.

No, I want to finish the punctuation benches. 

My husband, His Excellency: It's unlikely that you will find a bench to illustrate each of the marks of punctuation. You'll soon come to a fullstop.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/85990435/

I'll be fine. I have plenty of benches stacked up.

photo by Sheila B

His Excellency: That's what I'm afraid of. I'm getting bored.

Go back to your bench and wait then, please. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/iluvcocacola/534017717/ 

His Excellency: I'd like to make it clear that this is not me. 

Tamsin: Poor chap, I wonder how long he's been waiting? 

Eddie: According to the punctuation on the sign, this is just one husband's bench. It's not a bench for all husbands.

True. This is the catastrophe of the apostrophe. 

Lord Brassica: This chap looks chilly. He wants taking down to the Duck and Dog Collar for a Ploughmans and a warming pint. 

Is that Ploughman's belonging to one ploughman or Ploughmans' belonging to all who plough? Just asking.

Eddie: Unless this bench belongs to just this one husband, it's not p

The same with this guy's bench:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smichael/3863185306/

Tamsin: So are you saying I can't sit on this bench because I'm not a guy?

Eddie: No one can sit on it, except a guy named Guy. It's Guy's bench.

If it's for other guys, it would need different punctuation. 

Eddie: Or indeed no punctuation at all. 

Tamsin: Wow, I'm getting more and more confused. My head is full of questions.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcleod/7150176115/

OK, Tamsin, tell me your three favourite things.

Tamsin: I like cooking babies and puppies. 

Lord Brassica: Cooking babies? That's not so bad. But cooking puppies! What kind of monster are you?

I think you mean you like cooking, babies, and puppies.   

Tamsin: That's what I said. 

Eddie: there are apparently some areas where eating children is a spectator sport.

Tamsin: I would never leash my dog; it's too cruel.

You're missing my point about the importance of correct punctuation.

Lord Brassica: I can't see what all the fuss is about. I didn't get where I am today by knowing where to put a semi-colon. 

Well, excuse me, Lord B, you got where you are through inherited wealth. Drizzly Manor is inherited.

Lord Brassica: Is it? By jove, I guess it is. 

As is Castle Broccoli. 

His Excellency: The words 'entitled' and 'twit' come to mind.

Lord Brassica: That was my great grandfather: Manley Randolph Godfrey de Puking Entwit. 

Eddie: I've looked him up.

The Scholars, Gabriel Ritter von Max 

Eddie: He was known as De Puking Entitled-Twit.  

Tamsin: So hyphenated words have a hyphen? 

Yes, it's only non-hyphenated words that don't have a hyphen.

His Excellency: I note an irony in the spelling of the words hyphenated and non-hyphenated. 

Lord B: I still don't see why we need spelling. Or punctuation.   

Because meanings change where punctuation is not used properly. 

my photo, Wiltshire

Eddie: Shouldn't Starbucks have an apostrophe? 

His Excellency: This isn't Starbuck's. This is St. Arbuck's, a different thing altogether. 

Eddie: Their cappuccino is excellent. 

Either way, you need an apostrophe to make the meaning clear. Here's another example for you:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/orangebrompton/4294873069

                

                 
Lord Brassica: My own polo ponies drive rather faster than most. One of them has six penalty points for speeding. 

Tamsin: Ohhhhh, I LOVE ponies! 

Luckily red squirrels slow down. 

Tamsin: I love cute little squirrels too! 

Here's another sign for you from the drive-through safari park. 

Lord Brassica: Quite. You don't want elephants roaming free. They're much safer in cars.  

His Excellency: I think you'll find this is the imperative form in which the 'you' is implied. 

Lord Brassica: I don't want a ruddy elephant in my Land Rover. I've already got a cow and a couple of dogs in there. 

My horse Tonks has to ride in the carriage.

Let's try again. 

www.etsy.com/shop/teenietees

Lord Brassica: Good Lord. What sort of people eat their ancestors? 

His Excellency: There seems to be a lot of cannibalism about.

Not to put too fine a point on it, punctuation saves lives. 

Eddie: Speaking of points, in some places the fullstop is known as a period. It goes at the end of a sentence. 

Unless the sentence is a question. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/80417459@N00/2471314610/

Tamsin: This cat is sooooo cute!

His Excellency: Punctuation is quite straightforward; I hope you're not going to bore us with a lesson. 

Good use of the semi-colon here, HE.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/saucysalad/4929247829/  

Tamsin: Oh, I know this one! It's the winky face! ;

His Excellency: No. Just NO.  

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GrammaticalArt

Lord Brassica: What on earth is going on here? Polo ponies. Winky faces. This discussion is making me feel quite befuddled. I suppose you're going to say there's a punctuation mark for that? 

Indeed there is, Lord B. This is the interrobang. It's a combination of an exclamation and a question.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/larrytenney/9921675363/

Tamsin: I love little squiggles like this!  lol  What am I like?!   

Well, done, Tamsin. This is proper use of the interrobang. 

Tamsin:  Punctuation is brill!!!! I think I've nailed it!!!! 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/borispumps/7427448686/

His Excellency: You haven't. Multiple exclamation points are always incorrect. They should only be used in situations of extreme excitement, for example a 30th birthday party.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bsyf/4979582864/

Tamsin: Parties are fab!!! I go to as many as I can!!!

Eddie: As illustrated here, the exclamation point is seriously over-used. 

I agree, Eddie. There are too many exclamation points around.

 These days you can't find a bench without sitting on an exclamation mark. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pictoscribe/4246687403

Tamsin: Snow is sooooo lovely!!!

Eddie: Exclamation points leave me cold. People are far too free with them.

Lord Brassica: Giving away things for free makes people lazy and lacking in motivation. Nothing should be free.

What, even air?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/robwatling/5074906164/

Lord Brassica: I personally can afford all the air I need, and for that matter, all the punctuation. I'd like to see people pay for punctuation if they need it. 

His Excellency: What price the exclamation point?

Lord Brassica: About £3.75 I think.  

Tamsin: Golly, I've run up quite a bill!!!!!  

Eddie: We're not making much progress. Punctuation Day is in September. It's going to be here before we've finished. 

Tamsin: Punctuation isn't very sexy, is it?

It depends, Tamsin. I've seen some rather racy correspondence about quotation marks.

www.etsy.com/shop/shopsaplingpress

His Excellency: And then there's the Comma Sutra . . . 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/8378437207

I hope they are practicing safe text. 

Eddie: An illustration from The Joy of Punctuation is more than I can bear. 

I agree, let's move on. I want to show you what happens when punctuation goes bad.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dlanham/2425029201/

Lord Brassica: This German comma chap seems to have run amuck, as Europeans are wont to do. 

His Excellency: Do the words British and Empire mean anything to you?

Eddie: As editor-in-chief of this post I suggest we avoid politics.

Tamsin: Your not wrong there.

It's YOU'RE, Tamsin, not YOUR! YOU ARE!

Lord Brassica: Hold your horses, Seashell, it doesn't do to get worked up. 

Tamsin: I love horses, especially ponies. There so cute and . . .

His Excellency: This may not be the best time to point out that THERE and THEY'RE have very different meanings.

So. Deep breaths. Start again. 

My bêtes noir is the comma splice, that's where independent clauses are joined by a comma, it's a thing that happens a lot these days, it's really irritating it doesn't make any sense, and I wish it would stop. 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GrammaticalArt

His Excellency: This is an excellent example, Seashell. The three ways of avoiding the comma splice are . . .

Sorry, HE, this isn't a punctuation lesson. We're not at Oxford, you know. 

His Excellency: I personally dislike the Oxford comma even though I went to Oxford.

www.etsy.com/shop/RedHedgePhotos  

I disagree. The Oxford Comma has its place. And so does good grammar. 

many online sources

Lord Brassica: Never saw a dog! By jove that's an unlucky girl.

Tamsin: Never smiled. She must have been miserable.

Lord Brassica: Why couldn't someone just show this poor woman a dog?

This is called an amphiboly; because of poor grammar, you're misunderstanding the meaning.

His Excellency: She couldn't see a dog without smiling. That in itself is a problem.

Now we need to tackle the most misunderstood punctuation of all - the apostrophe.

Tamsin: I know this place! They have really nice pastries!

Eddie: They make great cappuccinos.

We're talking about punctuation here, not coffee shops.

Tamsin: Wow, this is fun!

His Excellency: Looks like we've got some way to go on apostrophes.

We begin with a simple fact.

www.etsy.com/shop/shopsaplingpress

Eddie: Let me make this clear:

 www.etsy.com/shop/bookfiend

The incorrect apostrophe is sometimes known as the Grocer's Apostrophe, as in banana's, lemon's, potatoe's.  

Here in Fribble-under-Par, Squeezy, our pet lemon, gets sour about apostrophes.

 Squeezy: The Grocer's Apostrophe shows no respect whatsoever for lemons.

Lord Brassica: I say, this fellow doesn't look much like a grocer. 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/fishcakesoboy

Squeezy: The Grocer's Apostrophe shows no respect whatsoever for lemons.

Lord Brassica: Looks more like a hedgehog.  

His Excellency: Or in the plural, hedgehogs. 

Eddie: How hard is it to just add an s?

Well, English spelling is quite tricky. People seem to have a lot of problems with plurals. 

Tamsin: A pre-loved baby? Does that mean the baby isn't loved anymore? 

Eddie: Cheekie. WRONG. And Monkies. Just WRONG. 

His Excellency: Like a multi-storey carpark, it's wrong on so many levels.

Lord Brassica: I've told my chauffeur never to park in those structures.

Tamsin: You know what though? I don't care about the proper use of apostrophes. 

OK, Tamsin, fair enough. But you should know that the rogue apostrophe slayer is about.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Wordtree

His Excellency: Is it the slayer who's rogue or is it the apostrophe? Just asking.

Tamsin: You know what? I don't care about apostrophes. Or commas. Or spelling. 

His Excellency: Quite right, Tamsin. Bad spellers Untie!

I say SPELLING RULES! 

Sign Appreciation Society, Facebook

Enough! I'm going to find a bench and sit down with this plate of cookeys cookie's cookies for Punctuation Day. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/daviderickson/2884998707/

Eddie: This is a clear case for a dictionary.

Lord Brassica: I looked up the word 'bench' in my wife's dictionary and I couldn't find it. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/57474170@N05/14746919618/ 

Well done, Lord B. So fa, so good.

Lord Brassica: I have no idea what you're on about, Seashell. 

Tamsin: Me neither. I feel like my brain is upside down. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/artotemsco/3622165199/ 

His Excellency: I too am partial to some inverted Spanish punctuation.  

Tamsin: Do I speak Spanish? I don't think I do. 

There's no need to feel like an idiot, Tamsin. For the principles of punctuation, you just have to remember this little poem: 

The stops point out, with truth, the time of pause

A sentence doth require at ev'ry clause.

At ev'ry comma, stop while one you count;

At semi-colon, two is the amount;

A colon doth require the time of three;

The period four, as learned men agree. 

Tamsin: Do women agree though?

Lord Brassica: I'm not aware of any learned women in this neck of the woods. 

Present company accepted excepted, Lord B?

Lord B: I have no idea what company you mean. Fortnum and Mason? 

OK, we've covered commas, quotation marks, fullstops, question marks and exclamation points. Does anyone have any questions?

His Excellency: A philosophical question: is the exclamation point justified in the name of this seaside town in the west of England?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/66176388@N00/2792976701/ 

Lord Brassica: Westward Ho! When I was 18 I spent a jolly summer holiday there with my nanny! 

There are two exclamation points here, Lord B.  

Tamsin: Three pounds seventy-five each! That's ummmm . . . quite a lot of money!

Lord Brassica: This punctuation lark is all ruddy nonsense. I'll say toodle pip to you all and get back to my cows. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/orangebrompton/4255861037/ 

Golly. If asked nicely, Lord B's cows are clever enough to close the gate. 

Now that's something to celebrate on Punctuation Day!


Credits

We're very literary here on Benchsite. A stack of book benches for World Book Day? We got 'em. Poetry benches? Yes, please. We even have Dewey benches for militant librarians, and a whole alphabet of Dutch benches. And there's an alphabet of dance benches as well. 

According to Alexander Henning Drachmann, Alexander Henning Drachmann is a charming, reflective and relatively young artist from the west coast of Denmark. He loves books, music and films but he hates most modern pop music and also opera. He loves films and documentaries and he's green with a capital G (so that's Green). He took the photo of the question mark bench sculpture at the start of the story, which he saw in Esbjerg, Denmark in 2006. I wonder if it's still there. That's not a question by the way, which is why there is no question mark.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/drachmann/327122302/


The brilliant "You" seating is by TABISSO®, a dynamic French design company focusing on a new concept of high-end typographic lounge furniture. Typographia was inspired by teaching the alphabet in a township in South Africa. Their collection of typographic furniture allows you to freely communicate names, acronyms, or any personalised message by displaying chairs and floorlamps side byside. The set of chairs includes all letters from A to Z and numbers from 0 to 9, and the set of floorlamps covers over 20 punctuation marks.They were nominated finalists of best new product in a London design show in 2011. www.tabisso.com

Eddie is my Inner Editor, who just happens to be a primate. If you've seen much of Benchsite you will know what a problem Eddie is for me. He has ruined helped me edit the post about my swimming bench and the Blue Monday benches.  He interfered with stepped in to help with the Orange bench mystery. However, he has a habit of setting his own agenda with the benches. Look what a mess he made great job he did on St. George's Day . And as for my Red benches in February? No wonder I was very grateful seeing red. It's lucky he was around for National Insect Day though; his insect benches are buzzing.

Kevin Trotman is the Rocketeer and he makes brilliant fake industrial signs. His hometown is somewhere in Texas but now he lives in South Carolina. I wonder if they have Heavy Punctuation Crossing signs in South Carolina. No, I don't think so since The Rocketeer said he had fun making this using www.stclaire.com and PhotoShop. It's in the Punctuality Gallery on Flickr.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/kt/8741169/

His Excellency is one of my two husbands. He is a philosopher and a man who takes an interest in many subjects, apart from chemistry. He's particularly keen on poetry benches and also dancers. For more about my two husbands and their education see http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/workbench-wonders-two-husbands-lots-of.html

Some people are just so clever and creative that other people take their stuff and use it for their own purposes. Such is Tsahi Levent-Levi, who made the finger face with a question. It's one of his many brilliant teaching and presentation photos which appear in all kinds of galleries and is, fortunately, available on Creative Commons.     https://www.flickr.com/photos/86979666@N00/7623744452/

Tamsin is a sweet local girl who works here in Fribble-under-Par in the Not Quite Good Enough pharmacy. Ever a follower of fashion, Tamsin likes to try anything new. Fifty shades of pink benches? It didn't scare her. Tamsin has a French fiance, Garcon Orange, and a baby named Isambard Kevin, whose paternal origins are unknown. And she has a rather odd perspective on life, as shown in the post she helped me with about big and small benches. If you think size doesn't matter, you ought to see it. 

President Obama faced a lot of hazy questions in his time, which is why Raymond Bryson made a series of Obama versus, well, all kinds of stuff. Raymond Bryson's profile is empty but his albums are full of toys, animals and yes, quite a few question marks. https://www.flickr.com/photos/f-oxymoron/9647624750/

Lord Brassica, Fifth Earl of Drizzly, is a gentleman farmer here on Paradise Island. He loves his horse Tonks, his dog Pru,and his 1947 Landrover, in that order. He indulges his wife, Lady Jessica Brassica with a replica mall in the basement of Drizzly Manor, a beach hut on the Esplanade, and unlimited amounts of cash for shopping. However, it has emerged that he doesn't know as much as you'd think about farm animal benches, especially cow benches or sheep benches. He knows a bit more about horse benches, learned from his horse Tonks, and possibly something about dog benches from his dog Pru. What he really knows though, is picnic benches. 

The question mark sculpture person is from the Florence Exhibition of sculptor Jean-Michel Folon.It was photographed by Marco Bellucci in 2005  https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcobellucci/3534516458/


We can't do punctuation without reference to the lovely ampersand. Ampersand/Needle is a photograph showing detail of Roy McMakin's sculpture Love & Loss in Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park. The neon object above is the ampersand from the sculpure, which uses various shapes - including a tree trunk, a concrete bench and a tiny artificial pond - to spell out the title Love & Loss. Edgeplot was there to photograph it in 2007. https://www.flickr.com/photos/edgeplot/364284317/

Lady Jessica Brassica is a fashionista and former model with Studio Joop from Overbearing in Holland. Now she has her own fashion house at Ballyfrumpy in County Offhand in Ireland. She loves shopping at her replica mall and having poetry read by Young Male Readers dot com. She is happily married to Lord Brassica, Fifth Earl of Drizzly but last summer Lady Jess  spent rather a lot of time at her beach hut with Troy. 

Tom Barrett is a Year 5 classroom teacher, ICT Subject Leader and Assistant Headteacher in a large primary school in Nottinghamshire. He has been blogging about the implementation of technology in his classroom for over three years at edte.ch. He also photographed the Punctuation Pyramid, which is helpful for Year 5 students and just about everyone else, including His Excellency. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kardon/2246419748/
  

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was a Portuguese writer. The Book of Disquiet, from which the punctuation quotation is taken, was published posthumously in 1984 and is a Penguin Classic. 

Lynn Truss's Eats Shoots and Leaves was book of the year in the UK in 2004. Some of its examples are hilarious. What's it about?  The rest of its title is The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. In this case you can tell a book from its cover. 

Kritterville USA makes brightly coloured and very cute benches, chairs and stools. The panda bench was photographed in 2010 and appears in Kritterville's photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/artompotamus/ There are also frogs, beetles, bugs, and a variety of other kritters. See which pandas and other animal benches Noah saved on the ark for World Animal Day  http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/noahs-ark-benches-for-world-animal-day.html

The jumble of pandas is The Panda Banquette by brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana at the mind-blowing design company L'arco Baleno. http://www.larcobaleno.com/ It's described as an iconic example of the Campana brothers’ signature style -   playful pieces made from repurposed stuffed animals, which the brothers Campana consider a humble, often overlooked material. The stuffed animals are hand-sewn onto canvas stretched over a stainless steel structure. The Panda Banquette is a limited edition of 25. At $44,170 it's the most expensive bench ever featured on Benchsite.

The Punctuation sudoku was for International Apostrophe Day in August 2013. Gosh, the apostrophe gets a day of its own! It comes from Dawn McIlvain Stahl, aka PurplePenning, who kindly brings style and order to writing, and lives to tell the tale. Dawn is a professional freelance copyeditor and writer with many interests. Exceptions: calculus, catheters, and cake. She's in Monticello,Illinois.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/purplepenning/9526323256/

There really is, or was, a St. Arbucks coffee shop in a village in Wiltshire, UK. Sadly, it did not have the required apostrophe to show ownership of the shop. In every other way, though, it's a very clever concept and I hope they gave that other Starbucks a run for their money. 

The two primate Scholars were painted by German artist Gabriel Ritter von Max (1840-1915).  Now that's a name to rival the very entitled Puking Entwits.

The giant pencil bench is by Ron Parks (2009). It's in Jocelyn Sculpture Park in Omaha, Nebraska and was photographed by Hanneorla for her photostream at  https://www.flickr.com/photos/hanneorla/8243041006 Hanneorla loves travelling and taking pictures around the world. She is fascinated by contemporary visual art, cutting-edge sculpture, modern architecture, and futuristic designs. The pencil bench features in the school's out for summer benches. No more pencils, no more books . . . 

The stack of benches are lounge chairs (sort of benches) and they were photographed by my good friend Sheila B, who lives in Cyprus. She's always there offseason and has a good eye for stuff that's stored, put away, waiting for something to happen. 

Bill and Vicki T live in Rochelle, Illinois. Back in 2007 they visited Alaska, where they saw the log cabin and the inviting Husband's Waiting Bench. https://www.flickr.com/photos/iluvcocacola/534017717/ 

Scott McLeod photographed some very colourful question mark cookies which someone baked in 2012. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcleod/7150176115/  Scott, originally from Virginia, is a Director of Innovation. Associate Professor. CASTLE Director. Blogger. Idea generator. Solution builder. Agitator. Catalyst. And here's a quote for you, properly punctuated: “If the leaders don’t get it, it’s not going to happen.”

Tina Marie's shop is Teenie Tees, where they are dedicated to creating fun, funny, cute and trendy shirts designs that you will love and love to wear for years. Just one of her Tees is the one showing the importance of a comma. Let's eat Grandpa has a completely different meaning than inviting Grandpa to eat. Commas really do save lives. www.etsy.com/shop/TeenieTees 

Cats have a way of asking perfectly punctuated questions with their tails. This cat photo is Punto interrogativo? The photographer is Mauro from Umbria in Italy. https://www.flickr.com/photos/80417459@N00/2471314610/

Rebecca Wilson is a girl after my own heart. She believes that punctuation is truly the glue that's holding civilization together, however tenuously. Back in 2010 she bravely defended the semi-colon, a misunderstood punctuation mark which comes in for a lot of schtick. You can read it here: http://saucysalad.com/2010/08/26/a-punctual-defense/  And you can see it on her photostream at https://www.flickr.com/photos/saucysalad/4929247829/  Rebecca is a professional web editor and writer and an amateur photographer who now lives in Portland, Oregon.

Natalie in Phoenix, Arizona is a nerdy chemist by day and a graphic designer by night. Her brilliant Etsy shop, Grammatical Art, combines her love of grammar, graphic design, and science to make prints, tees, and cards for the nerd in all of us. I have used two of her semi-colon prints to show why comma splices are not cool; a semi-colon is much cooler. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GrammaticalArt

The interrobang (‽) is a combination question mark and exclamation point. It's out of fashion now but it was once used to punctuate an excited or rhetorical question like #WTH‽  .Some people have been campaigning to bring it back. Larry Tenney took this photo in 2013 https://www.flickr.com/photos/larrytenney/9921675363/

Neil Milne from Glasgow is otherwise known as boris pumps. Among other things, he photographs nail art, including the freehand exclamation marks on a black background. https://www.flickr.com/photos/borispumps/7427448686/
It's apparently by Buzz Buzz at www.facebook.com/buzzbuzznailart

Ian is holding a portable exclamation mark but he doesn't look very excited about it. The photographer is bysfonline at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bsyf/4979582864/ 

Sometimes Rob Watling from Nottingham UK takes photos, and sometimes he posts them on Flickr. Free Air! is a 2010 photo  https://www.flickr.com/photos/robwatling/5074906164/  

In April 2018 benches were big news on the internet. Well, one was anyway. When Nicole Campbell died, age 35, in Los Angeles, a nice memorial bench was put up in her name intending to celebrate her love of dogs. Instead, what became celebrated was the amphiboly (misunderstanding) arising from poor grammar on the bench plaque. RIP Nicole.  

Lisa Krowinski owns the Shop Sapling Press in Pittsburgh, specialising in letterhead printed stationery. There are quite a few very useful Fact sheets, for example did you know that on the internet you're never more than three clicks away from a cat? Nice to know. Fact 79 concerns the apostrophe and there is an interesting personal letter from Question Marks. Lovely stuff, Lisa! www.etsy.com/shop/shopsaplingpress  And speaking of cats, my cat editor Meredith can show you some purrfect cat benches for World Cat Day.

David Lanham is an illustrator and designer living in Greensboro, North Carolina. He made the Bad Comma cartoon which says that a comma in the wrong place can be a dangerous thing, even in German. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dlanham/2425029201/  For some greatly diverse European benches see http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/united-in-diversity-28-benches-for.html

The Oxford bench was photographed by Stephanie Byron, who is from Iowa. I don't know if she was actually in Oxford at the time, or maybe even another place called Oxford, other than the well-known university one. Her shop is Red Hedge Photos, which sells simple, beautiful, and unique  products  inspired by nature. There are floral prints, animals, textures, objects, letters and all kinds of prints to add a dash of cheerful inspiration to everyday life.  www.etsy.com/shop/RedHedgePhotos  

There are Apostrophe cafes all over the place. I took a photo of this one in London. 

Elizabeth is a Book Fiend from Belmont, North Carolina. Fittingly, she runs Book Fiend, a shop selling literature-inspired jewelry, stickers, magnets, cuffs and gifts. There are safe text warnings and Oxford commas, and one of her weatherproof vinyl stickers is a great reminder that apostrophes do not make plurals. She does grammar too: the past, the present and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.  www.etsy.com/shop/bookfiend 

Here in Fribble-under-Par we have a six year old named April, and her parallel selves, May and June. Squeezy is their pet lemon. Here they are at Easter, when things were going a bit sour.

The Respect Apostrophes button is from Voz in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. His Etsy shop, Fishcakes, makes nifty stuff like buttons, books, mugs and keychains. There is evidence of the grammar police and spelling vigilantes amongst the many colourful buttons. Great to see that!  https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/fishcakesoboy

Oh dear. Although it has a thriving literary scene and many writers, the Isle of White Wight is the home of Cheekie Monkies. You can see the sign writer meant well. He or she understood that some words are made plural with ie. Unfortunately, cheeky and monkey do not follow this rule. Cheeky monkeys are needed. Goes to show that when in doubt, check your dictionary or your spellcheck. But even that won't save you from pre-loved babies. For some monkey business with cheeky monkey benches see http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/monkey-business-on-st-georges-day.html


From their base in Cardiff in Wales Team Wordtree are a specialist brand language consultancy. They create styles of language and write for companies all over the world. In their spare time, these cunning linguists create some nice wordy, printed things, such as the rogue apostrophe slayer.They are never lost for words. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Wordtree

David Erickson photographed a splendid plate of punctuation cookies for National Punctuation Day in 2008. He's a strategic communications professional, director of e-Strategy, and expert media source on online communications from Minneapolis.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/daviderickson/2884998707/

The dictionary bench defining the word 'sofa' is Dr Johnson's Wild World Book Bench from London in the summer of 2014. The designer is Scriberia and it was photographed by givingnot@rocketmail.com, who has nothing in his/her profile but lots of albums of London and some from Berlin, including quite a few benches. https://www.flickr.com/photos/57474170@N05/14746919618/ 

¡I really like the Spanish language convention of inverted question and exclamation marks! Artotem captured these beautifully in 2009. https://www.flickr.com/photos/artotemsco/3622165199/  You can see some fabuloso Mexican benches at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/a-fiesta-of-mexican-benches.html

Michael Beitz, a Fine Arts graduate of the University of Buffalo, exhibits throughout Europe and the US. He makes all kinds of weird and wonderful sculptures which have emerged from his years as a furniture designer. Sofas in knots, upside down tangled tables - it's great to see his quirky, twisty, mind-bending stuff. The idiot bench, made of wood, is from 2013.
http://www.michaelbeitz.com/about.html

The poem Principles of Punctuation is by Cecil Hartley, published in 1818. It's not really the way we understand punctuation these days but someone might find it useful. 

The Westward Ho! beach was photographed by Mark Robinson in 2008 and yes, Westward Ho! is a real place and it has a real exclamation mark as part of its name. https://www.flickr.com/photos/66176388@N00/2792976701/  Not to be outdone by Westward Ho!, the small town of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec has two exclamation points, three hyphens, and space between Ha! and Ha! So there.