The State Fair of Texas Made a Big Mistake on Its Welcome Sign, and Reddit Rejoices

Typos happen. Nobody knows that better than we do. Grammar and syntax mistakes are part of the writing process, but it's unfortunate when your mistakes are so public.

We hope that eases the mind of the sign writer who made a noticeable mistake on the official welcome sign at this year's State Fair of Texas.

The sign, located on the other side of the ticket booth at the DART entrance on Parry Avenue, greeted guests on opening day with a hearty "We're glad your here!" when it clearly meant "you're."

"No one said anyone ever went to the great State Fair of Texas for grammar," says Jennifer Meehan of Dallas. One of the first people to spot the sign, she snapped a picture of it for her social media. "I could not resist sharing the first thing I saw walking into the fair with the rest of the world."

Melissa Kerwin went to the fair on opening day last Friday and spotted the sign with the glaring homonym error.

"We walked in and I looked at it and started laughing," Kerwin says. "I pointed it out to my friend and said, 'That's not spelled right.'"

Kerwin, Meehan and everyone else who walked by the sign with a charged smartphone snapped photos of the sign and shared it on their social media pages. From there, it found its way to places such as Reddit, where one member of the "r/Dallas" page was quick to point out, "When you are #38 in education." It also doesn't help that Texas currently ranks below the national literacy average, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Kerwin says her Facebook followers didn't hold back their feelings about the obvious error with comments like "Is that real?" and "Are you serious?"

"My favorite was 'Big Tex no grammar so good,'" Kerwin says.

It took a couple of days for State Fair staffers to notice the sign, but it was removed at some point over the weekend, according to other fair attendees.

It's a shame, because the fair could use some new entertainment attractions. They could bring back the freak show and present the sign as an exhibit. This is the kind of thing that would make the fairway ticket coupons that are now $1 instead of 50 cents worth the new price of admission.

"See the sign that no one bothered to spell check!" a barker might announce for the new attraction. "Marvel at the mistake that several people failed to notice! Gasp at the reminder of the mistakes you've made in your own life that you thought no one else would notice!"