Top this, Paul Moyer:Veteran TV anchor Jerry...

Top this, Paul Moyer:

Veteran TV anchor Jerry Dunphy is (temporarily) off the air, meaning viewers are deprived of his trademark greeting: “From the desert to the sea to all of Southern California. . . .”

But his influence has been felt everywhere. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, for instance, a NATO spokesman recently began his daily briefing: “From the Sava [River] to the sea . . . NATO operations are peaceful.”

BUT DO YOU REALLY WANT TO ANSWER THAT CALL FROM ABOVE? A colleague spotted a store in Long Beach that specializes in religious supplies and “beeper activations.”

THERE ARE SPIRITS AND SPIRITS: For this week’s edition of Hysterical Phone Directory Listings, we are indebted to Curtis Sayre of West L.A., who spotted the following in a Culver City book (see excerpt).

AN APOSTROPHE THAT CAUSED SOME EXCLAMATIONS: When we ran M. R. Rosenlof’s shot of the Der Wienerschnitzel plaque (see photo), we were merely attempting to counter the belief of Easterners that L.A. has no history.

But several readers, including one entire elementary school class, have demanded we also mention a grammatical error on the plaque.

Ashley Appa, writing on behalf of her fifth-grade classmates at Rolling Hills Country Day School, said: “We have been studying grammar, and the part of the sentence, ‘opened it’s doors,’ has a mistake. “It’s’ is a contraction, meaning ‘it is.’ The whole sentence would read: ‘At this location, July 3, 1961, the first of Der Wienerschnitzel’s nationwide chain opened it is doors.”’

Unfortunately, as Ashley points out, the mistake isn’t easily correctable since it’s etched in brass.

Anyway, thanks, Ashley, and give our best to Allison, David, Melissa, Victoria, Justin, Rik, Nicholas, Jonathan, Eric, Catherine, Glenn, Brandon, Talia, Stephanie, Chelsea, Taryn, Vijay, Laura and Kurt.

A PARENTHETICAL ITEM: Hoping to cut off any further mail on this subject, we’ll point out, while we’re at it, that there should be a comma after the date on the plaque.

FROM THE FREEWAY TO THE BEACH: Buzz magazine columnist Sandra Tsing Loh, whose new book is “Depth Takes a Holiday: Essays from Lesser Los Angeles,” is a versatile performer. She is the musician who pounded away on a piano in such locations as the beach at Malibu and a parking garage along the Harbor Freeway to serenade grunion and motorists, respectively.

We’ve been indebted to Loh since her 1988 milestone piece in L.A. Weekly, “Fifteen Minutes--How To Become Famous.” She wrote, in part: “Steve Harvey is a particularly good person to send press releases to in the Metro section. He seems to have an unending appetite for things Wacky. . . .”

Not long after that, we heard from a dancing window-washer, a couple whose collie had fallen in love with a duck and a man who stuffed 143 cigarettes in his mouth.

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In case you’re wondering, the Der Wienerschnitzel flub isn’t the oldest public typo in the Southland. We know of a South Bay church whose cornerstone has said “Christain” since 1940. Wonder if anyone’s beeper has sounded in that church?