I responded to a recent blog post written by Gareth Bowles today and was struck - again - that a defect that must have been seen >10 million times by now has still not been corrected. When anyone responds to a blog post on Blogger.com, the stat counter says "1 comments" instead of correctly stating "1 comment." What's up with that?

The clothing company Lands' End (with the apostrophe erroneously after the s instead of before it) has a bizarre but somewhat logical explanation for why they have printed their grammatical-mistake-laden brand name on millions of pieces of clothing. According to one version of the story I have heard, they printed their first brochures with the typo and couldn't afford to get it changed. I also remember reading a more detailed explanation in a catalog in the late 80's to the effect that by the time the company management realized their mistake and tried to get trademark protection on "Land's End" they discovered that another firm already had trademarked rights to that name. Quick internet searches can't verify that so perhaps my memory is just playing tricks on me. But I digress. Here's the defect I wanted to highlight with this post:

For Blogger.com to leave the extra "s" in has me stumped for several reasons. First, this defect has been seen by a ton of people as Blogger.com is, according to Alexa's site tracking, the world's 7th most popular site. Second, Blogger.com is owned by Google (among the most competent, quality-oriented IT wizards on the planet) and no trademark protection is preventing the correction. Third, it would seem to be such an easy thing to fix. Fourth, other sites (like wordpress) don't make the same mistake. Fifth, it doesn't seem like a "style preference" issue (like spelling traveled with one "L" or two); it seems to me like a pretty clear case of a mistake. It would be a mistake to say "one cars," "one computers," or "one pedantic grammarians"; similarly, it is a mistake to say "one comments". What gives? Anyone have any ideas?

For anyone wondering where the ">10 million times" figure came from, it is pure conjecture on my part. If anyone has a reasoned way to refute or confirm it or propose a better estimate, I'm all ears.