Okay, the photo they chose for their ad doesn’t help the confusion, but is their bar name one word or two? I'm guessing it’s located close to either a hospital or a frat house. If the latter, it's spelled "rapey." And c'mon, guys: it's li’l, not lil’. The apostrophe...
Just Your Type
Type, design, writing and other funny stuffTypography
Cast of characters
#HashtagsAreAllTheRage. Oddly, that # character isn't called a hash—not in America, anyway. We call it the pound sign, or (with pinky raised) the octothorpe. (The geniuses at Bell Laboratories gave that fancy name when they added it to the telephone keypad, because...
Prime time
When I first saw print ads featuring a prime when they meant to use an apostrophe, I considered it the sign of another amateur who got his first computer. When a similar gaffe appeared in a Time Magazine ad—the ad must have cost $30,000—I could imagine how my parents...
Dot… dot… dot…
So I was thinking… how fast can I introduce the improper use of the ellipsis? Not bad, eh? Just three words in. It's not curing cancer. But I'm a print book designer for independent authors. When your book goes out into the world, there are thousands of picky people...
Do you have to dash?
So you have a train of thought—you get siderailed—then you get back on track. That's a good time to use a dash. To make it you just type two hyphens-- Oh, no you dun't! A hyphen is a hyphen. Find it between the 0 and the = on your keyboard. It's used to...

"Mick" is Michael Campbell, a book designer, graphic artist and writer. His humor column, The Dumpster, closes every issue of Food & Spirits Magazine. Author of