Midnight Antics
My lovely mum and I often discussed our desire to go on an apostrophe raid. We planned to buy a paint brush, a pot of paint and a ladder, and head out in the dead of night to literally paint the town.
For all of the lamentable displays of poor grammar around the world, the misuse and non use of apostrophes were our pet peeves.
I well remember the day when I was a teenager, when my school sent a short note home to parents, which had absolutely none of the required apostrophes in it. I was so disgusted that I immediately pulled out a red pen and rectified the situation with very firm strokes. I then wrote a highly indignant note at the bottom of the page telling the school in no uncertain terms how appalled I was at their lack of basic grammar - a highly irresponsible act by a so called educational institution. I wouldn’t be surprised if I signed the note with an extreme flourish.
To this day, nearly 40 years later, I still await an acknowledgement from the school. (I also have no recollection as to whether or not I actually gave the note to my parents.)
Another grammatical short coming of society that I probably should let go of by now is the misplacement of hyphens. By that I mean both of the definitions of the word “misplacement”, since hyphens seem to have almost entirely disappeared in recent years.
A well regarded news app is notorious for this. Their headlines often make my head hurt. Here are just two from this week.
Governm
ent to
cap
internati
onal
student
numbers
Oil price
spikes
on
heighten
ed
geo-polit
ical
tensions
I will say though, that the same app has often caused me to giggle at its poorly worded headlines. I’m undecided if these are designed for such a reaction or if the editors really have no idea of the ambiguities presented.
“Turtle recovered after high-speed interstate police pursuit”
Was the turtle out of breath after running away from the police? What was wrong with the police car that it couldn’t keep up with the turtle? Perhaps the police car was held up at the fruit fly check point while the turtle sped across the border. (I wonder how many nectarines the police officers had to consume before they were allowed through?)
It seems that the marketing department of a popular fast food chain has taken a lesson from such headlines. “Stay hungry for life” is currently displayed on the exterior wall of a local franchise in my area.
Are they telling me it would be safer for me to remain hungry than to consume their products? Or perhaps they are saying that their food is designed to keep me hungry so I will have to eat it continuously. Actually, I happen to think that their food is the least appetising of most of the fast food that I have access to anyway, so I think I’ll heed their warning and stay away.
But back to grammar. My lovely mum and I never did go on that apostrophe raid. However, I seem to have accumulated a number of pots of paint and brushes over the years. Maybe it’s time to honour her lifelong wish….
My school was actually a very good school. I think I was just having a bad day when I received the note!
Nikki
