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Editing Salvages Grammatically Incorrect Sign

Tribune photos by MICHAEL SPOONEYBARGER and JASON BEHNKEN

The Tampa Downtown Partnership has corrected the grammar on the sign at Franklin and Platt streets near Channelside Drive.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE and CHRISTIAN WADE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 23, 2009

TAMPA - Super Bowl visitors heading downtown next week will be greeted by this grammatically correct message: "Welcome to Downtown Tampa … so many reasons to love it."

The banner, at Franklin and Platt streets near Channelside Drive, was changed this week because the initial message had a grammatical error.

It said, "Welcome to Downtown Tampa: There's so many reasons to love it." The subject and verb in the second part didn't match.

Grammatically speaking, "There's" should be "There are."

The banner was paid for by the taxpayer-subsidized Tampa Downtown Partnership as part of a welcome campaign for visitors to the Feb. 1 championship football game.

After it was unveiled, Mayor Pam Iorio asked the nonprofit group to correct the wording or remove it.

Christine Burdick, president of the partnership, said this week that the group ultimately decided to retrofit it with grammatically correct wording.

She said group members didn't want to appear uneducated.

Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (813) 259-7679.

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