Disney Grammar Mistake Corrected by a Fourth Grader

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.

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Well, at least she had the spunk to recognize the error and take time out of her 4th grade schedule and write a letter and mail to DISNEY, that's more than what others did who supposedly "noticed" this along their path through the Disney wonderland. I truely believe it was an error or Disney wouldn't be putting efforts towards fixing it- do you know how much planning it takes to repair a sign in the Kingdom?? The engineers draw a plan- then to the cartoonist for coloring, then back to the engineers for dimensional approval, then to the budgeteers to make sure it is within their million $$ budget, then back to the planners to finanlly draw up the final plans... this goes on for weeks (and financially supports the incomes of many...) or is it the 79$ per day we the consumers pay to get into this empire for 8 hours of entertainment (I guess that's what we refer to it now-a-days). OK, what did this get the 4th grader.... a paper certificate. WHOOPEE- DISNEY, i could have gone to Walmart and bought the kid more Disney products than you were able to share with her--- what's up with that???? WE want to know-- by the way, we heard this story made it to the UK & Germany & Canada now, so there is a little bit of interest around this, based on that fact probably that 1 person did take that extra step and actually act on something instead of just sit back and suck their thumb and say dah.?

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I noticed that when I went to Disney World about five years ago. I let it slide, but I wouldn't have if I'd known I could gain fame and fortune for nitpicking! I guess it would have been less precious, as I was seventeen at the time.

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... ;)

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It's Colleyville, Texas, not Coleville.
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

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"Good lord - are you guys seriously making derisive comments at a FOURTH GRADER"

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.