Hannah Estes, a four-year old fourth grader from Coleville, Texas, spotted something designers and thousands of tourists had not for 11 years. She spotted an error on a sign to the Primeval Whirl ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando.
The sign counted down the time to the ride: 5 seconds, 4 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 seconds.
"I read it out loud, and I'm like, 'Hey, that doesn't sound right," Hannah said. "A singular number can't be with a plural."
So she snapped a photo of the sign and wrote the top brass at Disney in California and Florida. The response was "almost immediate," said her father, Keith Estes.
The company expressed sentiments similar to those of her mother, Terri Estes, who said: "It's been up for 11 years, and Hannah's the first to catch and report it. It's just amazing that it got past the designers, cartoonists and thousands of tourists, and it took a fourth-grader to catch it."
Disney officials told Hannah they would fix the sign immediately and thanked her for pointing out the error. They also sent her a certificate making her an honorary Imagineer, a special-edition collector's pin and an Imagineering Field Guide book.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/04/27/2146681/colleyville-fourth-grader-corrects.html
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
If this were an adult pointing something out, it would not be news. BUT OH GAWD a preeeeciiioouuus child spotted something and *gasp* its amazing! Annoying.
Honestly, I'm sure she's not the first to have noticed it - I've noticed stuff like that tons of times. I just haven't complained about it to anyone. I just say "ha.. stupid!" and carry on with my day.
Certainly a few cheap accolades will throw off any suspicion, but in coming years the unforgiving corporate monlith named Disney will slowly and insidiously ruin her life.
It opened back on March 31, 2002 while the park "Disney's Animal Kingdom" opened in 1998 which was about 12 years ago...someone really needs to check their dates for how long things have been open.
Everything else is discussed in plural - such as 1.000001 seconds and .99999999 seconds. It is only singular for ... See Moresuch an infinitesimally small amount of time that it is for all practical purposes never actually singular.
If the scale moved from 0 to 1 to 2 to 3 etc in full second increments, such as the movement on a quartz watch, I would buy the argument.
Did her parents take her to Toys R Us next?
Apparently this was world-worthy news, therefore the world is allowed to say how non-special this is.
Maybe Mommy should have just stuck a special note on the fridge, but oh no, apparently it was really important the rest of us know how amazing her child is.
Colleyville is between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Here is the google map URL: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=colleville,+texas&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=53.961216,78.222656&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Colleyville,+Tarrant,+Texas&z=13
I am rather sick of the "Thousands of tourists didn't notice!" comment. I'm sure plenty of people did, they just weren't about to call up the Disney honchos to complain.
Oh, and Hannah, “I read it out loud, and I’m like, ‘Hey, that doesn’t sound right,” Hannah said. “A singular number can’t be with a plural.” is a horribly-worded sentence. Every grammarian worth her commas knows how to use "can" properly and despises when people use "like" as a substitute for "thought" or "said".
Correct sentence structure would look something like this: "I read it out loud and I thought, 'Hey, that doesn't sound right. A singular object shouldn't be pluralized." Those in glass houses, Hannah... ;)