Portland Businesses Recycles?
Apparently, they are also makings spellings errors.
We'll see | Matt Zimmerman
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We'll see | Matt Zimmerman 
Where’s the spelling error? “Portland” is spelled correctly, “Businesses” is spelled correctly and “Recycles” is spelled correctly.
It’s not a grammatical error either. “Portland Businesses Recycles” is saying “We the people of the businesses of Portland recycle” or “The businesses of Portland recycles”. It makes perfect sense.
What you’re identifying is the redundant ‘s’. It would also be grammatically correct to say “Portland Businesses Recycle” or “Portland Business Recycles”, although the latter is referring to an unknown specific business, where the former could be referring to actually recycling a specific businesses in Portland.
Technically, it’s correct, even if it does sound funny. If you were to eliminate “Businesses”, it probably would make more sense: “Portland Recycles”, except here, you’re not referring to the businesses of Portland, but the entire city in general.
Aaron
February 23, 2009 at 20:31
I came to find the spelling error, but I don’t see any.
Duane
February 23, 2009 at 22:05
If “businesses” is intended to be a plural noun, then the correct expression is, “Portland businesses recycle” – not a spelling error but a grammar error. To give them the benefit of the doubt, it’s just possible that “businesses” is a noun turned into a verb – in other words, Portland businesses [and] recycles – meaning, perhaps, that “businessing” leads to recycling which leads to more “businessing,” etc.
Donnie
February 24, 2009 at 02:37
Shut the f*ck up, Donnie.
Walter
February 25, 2009 at 07:52
While one might have called this a grammatical rather than a spelling error, clearly, the verb tense is incorrect.
It mayn’t even stand under the umbrella of notional agreement.
It ought to be “Portland Businesses Recycle”.
Perhaps mdz is being coy by not telling us why he chose to call it a spelling error.
Calyx
March 3, 2009 at 23:32
While the result is a correctly-spelled, grammatically incorrect sentence, my faith in my fellow humans is such that I believe the author intended to write it correctly, and inadvertently added a spurious ‘s’.
Also, “grammaticals errors” doesn’t sound as funny.
mdz
March 4, 2009 at 10:22