Monday, January 05, 2009

sometimes terrific


Courtney spotted this one. I guess the kid is middling.

9 comments:

Pete said...

And it might not even be a kid at all, but instead a 22-year-old mega-underachiever.

Unknown said...

I call shenanigans. This is a completely legimitate use of quotation marks.

It's the name of an award, a quotation from the school. It's equivalent to Our restaurant was voted "Best Subs in Town" three years straight.

If it was just the parent saying I have a "terrific kid", that would be stupid and incorrect. But this is an actual quote from the school: I have a "Terrific Kid" at Shoemaker Elementary, so there's nothing wrong with it.

Mike said...

First, don't spoil the fun.

Unknown said...

I wouldn't assume it's a quote from the school. Particularly since the sentence starts with "I."

Maaaaybe the school has an actual classification of kids who are "Terrific Kids" (thus meaning all the other kids are what, not terrific?) but I doubt that too.

john said...

You don't need quotes around the name of an award -- you should make the award more distinctively named if you want it to stand out.

"I won 'First Prize' at the Pumpkin Contest!" would make a lousy sticker.

Plus I'm betting any parent could get one of these just for having their kid enrolled there.

Unknown said...

I wouldn't assume it's a quote from the school. Particularly since the sentence starts with "I."

That doesn't make sense. The "I" is outside the quotation marks.

Maaaaybe the school has an actual classification of kids who are "Terrific Kids" (thus meaning all the other kids are what, not terrific?) but I doubt that too.

It does. My elementary school (not Shoemaker) had a "Terrific Kid" award given to one student in each grade every month. It's pretty common across the US. Maybe your school didn't want to hurt the dumb kids' feelings. Sorry.

You don't need quotes around the name of an award -- you should make the award more distinctively named if you want it to stand out.

No way, it's the fact that it's distinctively named that makes it merit (not require) quotes. "First Prize" is mundane and quantitative; "Terrific Kid" is more of a novel title.

Plus I'm betting any parent could get one of these just for having their kid enrolled there.

Nonsense, see above.

Roland said...

Terrific 3: Causing terror; terrifying.

From the Latin terrificus: frightening

Meat said...

"Terrific" job, honey! We're certainly "glad" we didn't put you up for adoption!

Bob said...

Or it is just some young person that lives with the sticker owner, but not actually their child.