This sign is located on the island of O‘ahu at the intersection of Kalaniana‘ole Highway and Hawai‘i Kai Drive to mark the entrance to the East Honolulu community of Hawai‘i Kai (a newly invented place name meaning ‘sea Hawai‘i’). As described in the article, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported in July 2002 that when the sign went up, an apostrophe was used instead of an ‘okina. City spokeswoman Carol Costa was quoted in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin as saying that the sign had cost between $60,000 and $70,000. Sign-maker Architectural Stone and Design carved out an ‘okina to replace the typographically incorrect apostrophe, but it is not entirely clear who was to blame for the glottal goof. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported that Carol Costa said the sign-maker had erred when putting in the apostrophe. However, the contractor CC Engineering and Construction Inc., who subcontracted Architectural Stone and Design for the job, blamed the architect Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo for the goof. John Cheung, president of CC Engineering and Construction, was quoted as saying, “We made it according to the design, but the design was wrong, so the architect agreed to pay us to redo it.” The newspaper reported that the architect would not comment, but referred calls to the city. Costa said the architect would pay for all the corrections (Fujimori 2002). The history of the glottal goof on the sign at Kaupakuea Homestead Road illustrates a similar problem in determining responsibility for ensuring correct spellings on newly erected signs.
Comments are closed.