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Opinion: Caltrans, its mishun and messidge

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

These are the depths into which $23 billion deficits will plunge you -- and the slashing has hardly begun.

Driving north on the San Diego Freeway in West LA on Tuesday I saw a huge orange Caltrans truck doing its assigned rush-hour tasks, whatever they were.

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Displayed on the backside of the truck, in letters that had to be three feet high, was this message:

‘’Thank you for driving safe.’’

Driving safe! Miss Houseman’s first-grade class, of which I was a member, would have known better than that. Adverb, people, adverb -- ‘’safely,’’ not safe!

Now that schools will be cutting back hours and increasing class size, little children will learn their grammar from advertising jingles and billboards and ... Caltrans trucks. And this was a big orange state-sponsored ad for subliteracy. What next, a bumper sticker reading, ‘’I Break for Sigalerts’’? Too Freudian to be funny.

There was plenty of room for the missing two consonants. So the only reason they were not there had to be that someone in charge didn’t know any better -- blame all that crummy, misspelled freeway graffiti the Caltrans crews have to keep reading. Either that, or they simply couldn’t afford the paint.

I certainly hope it was the latter. The governor wants all of us to pitch in and do our parts during these trying times. Sign me up! Cut and slash, but no shortcuts on good grammar! Pluck the milk bottle from the gums of hungry infants, but do not let this abomination stand!

Tell me when, tell me where, and I’ll be there to fix this. I’ll even buy the paint -- just doing my part to help California out of this, one adverb at a time.

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