When I was about 8, I voraciously devoured every Enid Blyton school story I could get my hands on. Literally. The covers were gnawed off almost obsessively. Folds were made that marked the boundaries of which bit would be torn off that day. By the time I was 11, I looked back on this habit with loathing and gave out mini codes of conduct with every paperback I lent, so that they would return to me pristine and unsullied by the grubby hands of my excessively carefree friends. My brother is still regularly made to suffer for sitting on The Complete Sherlock Holmes (a Christmas present) and bending the cover irreparably. I would never, ever, ever have dreamed of actually writing in any of my books.
However, I’ve found more recently that the increasingly poor editing of (specifically, but I doubt exclusively) certain ancient history books has led to me read with a pen (yes, my children, a PEN) to hand in order to correct errors. You might be marvelling at my unbounded hubris, but let me show you what I mean (errors coloured green):
I suppose it all depends on your point of view. If you you’re the kind of person who worries about where their earthly remains are kept after you no longer inhabit them, I suppose you might like to choose whether to have clouds or zebra print on your coffin (wood or 100% recycled cardboard, gold or rope handles).
This practice seems particularly prevalent on signs (e.g. ‘Starbucks’, where the apostrophe is never used even in general company documentation, despite it being named in part after the character in Moby Dick), where you would have thought that the company producing them would have someone to proofread what they were being paid to compose. See also this pub sign from our local old men’s pub. This particular pub has been on the same site since the 16 century, but I suspect the sign is a much later addition!