Tour's?
Now, I don't usually dwell on the grammar and spelling errors in the items that are featured here. But the widespread misuse of the apostrophe is an ongoing epidemic that gets many people, especially writers, journalists and editors, all hot and bothered.
It irks me, too. For some people, though, it's an obsession. There are websites devoted to pointing out this particular punctuation transgression — Apostrophe Abuse and Apostrophe Catastrophes are a couple of them.
Of course, it should be a little easier to forgive apostrophe mistakes when they are made by people for whom English is a second language. This is a brochure that was made by a Japanese company and is geared toward English-speaking tourists.
It includes detailed information about various bus tours, a map of Tokyo, photos of various Tokyo landmarks, and a directory of phone numbers for hotels, cruise ships, airlines, travel agencies, restaurants and museums.
Here is the pitch that the Pigeon Bus Co., Ltd., makes for its tours:
The best way to "do" leading sights of Tokyo with the minimum of time and expense is to avail yourself of Shin Nippon Kanko's Pigeon Bus service.1 A fleet of newly built, De-luxe motor-coaches, reserved exclusively for foreigners, has been assigned on carefully planned sightseeing routes, details of which are given inside the folder.
These motor-coaches are of the latest types and provide greater riding comfort. An English-speaking person accompanies each motor-coach. Pigeon Bus Office also arranges sightseeing trips in and around Tokyo using Chevorlet [sic], Plymouth or many types of Sedan for smaller or more intimate groups.
In case you're not convinced, the brochure includes these photographs of foreigners enjoying a Pigeon Bus experience.
The prices of the tours ranged from 1,000 yen to 2,500 yen, which included admissions, refreshments and a souvenir.
The brochure, as I mentioned, is undated. But I think it's from sometime in the early to mid 1960s. Here's a portion of an advertisement for Sony that's on one of the inside folds.
I found some links to more information about the products shown above:
"Footnote"
1. OK, one more punctuation thing. Why is "do" in quotation marks in that sentence in the brochure? That's another pet peeve. At least it provides a bit more humor than the misuse of apostrophes. Go check out The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks and "LOL! 44 Ordinary Signs That Became Suspicious When People Failed At Using Quotation Marks" on Distractify.
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