An Open Letter to the San Jose Sharks

Michael T. Lehr
President and Chief Executive Officer
Worcester Sharks and Sharks Minor Holdings, LLC
525 West Santa Clara St.
San Jose, CA 95113

Dear Mr. Lehr

First of all, I would like to introduce myself. My name is David Tieche, and I am a local Bay Area representative for the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, and we are writing to object, in the strongest possible language, to a recent campaign by the San Jose Sharks organization.

Understanding that many of your players and fans are Canadian, we want to make it clear that we have no wish to create an international incident. Furthermore, we are frightened by the prospect of angering large men who carry sticks, many of whom are from a country (Canada) that doesn’t use the death penalty as a deterrent.

Enough skating around the point. Earlier in the year, during the NHL pre-season, your organization printed and distributed thousands of promotional t-shirts, encouraging your fans to be truly dedicated. I am including a picture of the aforementioned shirt:



Here is another picture.



I want to point out a number of things, in case your elementary school teachers never told you. The word who's is a contraction, short for "who is". This is the word you used in the printing of this shirt. This is NOT however, the word you wanted. The word you wanted was "whose" which is an interrogative pronoun. Interrogative pronouns are used in asking questions, as in "Whose tooth is that out there on the ice?" or "Whose beer just spilled on my shoes?"

The man wearing that shirt is a friend of mine, and a raging lunatic when it comes to his devotion to your team. But I cannot, in good conscience, allow him to walk around in a shirt featuring that kind of grammatical atrocity.

In the future, here is what I suggest: before you spend tens of thousands of dollars printing thousands and thousands of promotional t-shirts, make sure that someone with a firm understanding of grammar proof-reads them.

This will not cost you extra money. For example, there are several Elementary schools close to your offices in Downtown San Jose. Gardner Elementary (502 Illinois Avenue) and Washington Elementary (100 Oak Street) are almost within walking distance. I am sure that the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students would very much enjoy helping out their home-town hockey team.

Imagine if Sharkie, your mascot, showed up at their school with a series of mark-ups for the students to proof. This would send the message to impressionable children that Sharkie wants to devour not only divisional rivals, but also egregious grammar. Now that would be something.

Perhaps a fresh and grammatical start such as this would be just the thing to earn the San Jose Sharks a playoff berth next year.

We’ll be watching (from a safe distance, just in case).

Sincerely,
David Tieche
Ad hoc representative
The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar
SPOGG

BTW: If you liked this post, check out the originators of the SPOGG by reading the book "Things that Make Us [sic]" by Martha Brockenbrough.