English as She is Spoke

The Adventures of a Pedant Dick - you're mangled-English detective

This is a dangerous game.

I relate to you (with spluttering dismay) a litany of crimes against the English language and, for your part, you discover (with smug delight) a shower of indictable offences in my ravings. Naturally, as a crusader of the correction pen, you have already made a start on the above.

Delicious. A pedant hoisted on his own petard.

Soooooo, to reduce exposure to the cold winds of criticism, I'll rein myself in with a brief  attack. Oh yes, I would consider it a favour (or is it 'favor') if you'd note that I live in a far flung convict-stocked land where English is the Queen's and not the President's.

It can be no surprise that I'm like that with Lynne Truss about apostrophe sins. You know her, the revved-up author of the wonderful Eats, Shoots and Leaves, her blitz on ignorant, casual and mystifying punctuation.

People tell me that this or that is a must-read. Well, most of them aren't. But THIS, Truss' ESL, this is a MUST READ. And that's an order.

Where were we? Oh yes, applying the cattle prod to the apostrophe.

I will not bore you with interminable examples. Righteous indignation has only so many friends. How about just a handful from the plural-deficit syndrome bag.

'Beautiful photo's here' - what a relief; that gorgeous girl with the weird name has finally turned up, at the Blandville fast photo emporium of all places.

I suggested grovellingly to the owner of the premises that he may have wanted to indicate the plural and thus modify his sign ever so slightly to 'beautiful photos here'. Dear reader, what a fool I am. This noble merchant took umbrage. I had slurred him. I had offended him. It was a bloody outrage. 'Get out', he screamed politely.

'Blandville-on-Sea Welcomes Senior's' - seniors what? Their elbows, their blue rinses, their wallets? Perhaps their entire person. It was hard to tell from the gigantic banner strung across the main thoroughfare of this friendly metropolis.

I giggled, of course, and tried to engage passers-by in sharing the municipal embarrassment. They were baffled. 'Look out. He's a nutter' they said, as they shepherded their children away from the loony raving at the nice sign. Poor old senior that I am, despair engulfed me.

'Wednesday nite's schnitzell's' - oh God, a quadruple whammy. But staff were on the ball. A week later modifications had been made to the banner gracing the railing of The Ferret's Ruin, a local watering hole - at least the ancient signwriter knew his stuff.

'Wednesday night's shnitzels' - two steps forward, two steps back. It's progress, if viewed generously. They knew something was wrong but what the heck was it?

'Wednesday night's snitzels' - it works, sort of. Someone should be congratulated for trying.

Your Tireless Correspondent knew by now, from episodes short of physical mauling, that if action were to be taken it should be done surreptitiously, by dead of night, balaclava-clad, with hooded torch, wielding squeakless marker in rapid corrective movements.

Today people, NOW people, think that punctuation is, like good manners, optional. (What a magnificent generalisation; so good I can't bear to throw it away.)

Well, it's easier to understand the importance of punctuation if you imagine sentences as a piece of music. Go on, there's the music written out on it's funny little lines with all those squiggles of notation. But wait, let's see what happens when we chuck out that pesky notation. How come Moonlight Sonata now sounds like Born in the USA?

OK, it's a slight exaggeration. The point is, Moonlight Sonata would not sound like Moonlight Sonata without those little squiggles, the musical punctuation. It becomes nonsense without them. Beethoven knew this so he wrote it complete with little squiggles. So did Bruce - he knew it and used them too.

And it's the same for written English (probably Sanskrit too, but I wouldn't know). Without proper punctuation the message becomes something else. 'Eats, shoots and leaves', or is that 'Eats shoots and leaves'? See what I mean.

And now, a final classic:

Caesar entered on his head

A helmet on his foot

A sandal in his hand he had

His trusty sword to boot.

You work it out, if you care.

Grammar Warrior - hot on the trail of split infinitives

 Here endeth the lesson