OAKLAND -- Is saving time a good excuse to skimp on spelling? The Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District seems to think so.
As part of a campaign to promote its expanded transbay service to San Francisco, AC Transit ran two buses emblazoned with the unusual slogan, "I'ts About Time."
The apostrophe-challenged omnibuses ambled about for four months, cruising across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, appearing in a Berkeley parade, even serving as props at a televised press conference on transit service. According to AC Transit, not a single resident complained about the spelling.
The district was consistent, at least, in its incorrectness. Spokesman Jaimie Levin admits that before the campaign began, "I even had little models of the bus" complete with the typo. "It just slips through...I swear we all looked at it." (It cost AC Transit $10,000 apiece to install the errant ads, although the responsible contractor fixed them for free last week, after Mr. Levin noticed the error himself on the life-size buses.)
Some are treating the matter philosophically, if not grammatically. Says Allan Wash, president of the San Diego-based company that designed the ad, "English is a lost language in the Western U.S. anyway."
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