Grammarians Gone Wild

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, pleaded guilty to vandalism after damaging an historic, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park. On March 28, they were accused of using a whiteout product and a permanent marker to deface a sign that's a National Historic Landmark.
Investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL.
According to the Internet posting, TEAL members correct typos on public signs. (The TEAL site is currently unavailable) Original and corrected signs are photographed and posted at the site. A detailed map tracks the progress of the grammar vigilantes' cross-country crusade.
In addition to being banned from national parks for a year, the two are barred from modifying any public signs and must pay restitution to repair the Grand Canyon sign. Read more...

Errors on public signs irritate me too, but I wouldn't deface a national monument in the name of good grammar. What kind of sentence includes being barred from modifying any public sign?

I have never experienced a 'whiteout emergency'; maybe I don't truly have a type-o personality.


Tags: [Jeff Deck] [Benjamin Herson]
[T.E.A.L.]
[Vandalism] [Good Grammar]
[Personality Types]

Schools Advised to Reject Middle Class

Professor John White, a member of a committee established to advise on curriculum changes in the U.K., will explain the suggestion that 'middle class' academic subjects should be removed from the national curriculum in junior high schools.

Children should no longer be taught traditional subjects at school because they are "middle-class" creations, the advisory panel concluded. Lessons should instead cover a series of personal skills.
Pupils would no longer study history, geography and science but learn skills such as energy-saving and civic responsibility through projects and themes.     ..the full article..
Energy conservation is a meaningful unit within a broader science course; ecology and conservation belong in geography; civic responsibility lessons are a by-product of studying history. It's necessary to understand how the past influences the present and predicts the future.

Available at chapters.indigo.ca

Geography, history, science and the arts are underfunded in education now - partly because funding levels consider student achievement on standardized tests. The standard tests focus on English and Math, yet an entire generation struggles with arithmetic, grammar, reading comprehension and writing. The panel's report claims that 'the aims [of changing the curriculum] include fostering a model pupil who "values personal relationships, is a responsible and caring citizen, is entrepreneurial, able to manage risk and committed to sustainable development".'

I support these goals, but I don't understand how removing social sciences is going to achieve them; however, I see there may be a buyer for my proposed course on Communication for Youth.

Among the units covered in my suggested class would be Communicating in Spontaneous Situations (Small Talk) and Conventions of Conversation.
The course would cover initiating, participating in and ending conversations. We'd discuss using humor, irony and sarcasm effectively, as well as the importance of thinking before speaking.

I can't decide if Communication for Youth will be a prerequisite or co-requisite of my proposed Common Sense 101.
I'll see what Professor White and his pals think.

Tags: [Prof. John White]  [Curriculum Review Committee]
["Middle Class" Subjects]
[Mark Bauerlein]  [The Dumbest Generation]

Hyphens At-Risk

The most recent punctuation species to hit the endangered list: the hyphen.

The new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has new spellings of 16,000 words. Formerly-hyphenated words appear in this new edition as either compound nouns (pigeonhole) or two separate words (pot belly).

" 'People are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they're not really sure what they are for," said Angus Stevenson, editor of the Shorter OED, the sixth edition of which was published this week.' "

Stevenson is quick to point out, however, that there is still a place for the hyphen in modern language - twenty-odd people came to the party; or was it twenty odd people?

In 2002, Florida candidate Patrick Feheley sued opponent Candice Brown-McElyea over a hyphen. He accused her of hyphenating her name to secure a better position on the ballot. Had she not changed her name prior to the election, Feheley's name would have been listed first on the ticket.

I never would have guessed that a gung-ho dictionary editor could be such a rabble-rouser.

There are a great many hyphens left in America. For my part, I think the most un-American thing in the world is a hyphen. —Woodrow Wilson, speech, 1919

Tags: [Short Oxford English Dictionary] [Angus Stevenson]
[Patrick Feheley] [Candice Brown-McElyea]
[The Hyphen] [Woodrow T. Wilson]

Endangered Punctuation

Robert J. Samuelson's submission "The Sad Fate of the Comma" ,(Newsweek, July 23) caught my eye. Not just because of my interest in words, but because, about a month ago, I was involoved in a discussion about saving the comma from extinction.

What's wrong? You're looking at me like you've never discussed endangered punctuation around the dinner table before. Samuelson states "the comma is in retreat, though it is not yet extinct. In text messages and e-mails, commas appear infrequently, and then often by accident (someone hits the wrong key)."

I believe that the overuse of the ellipsis ( ... or dot-dot-dot) in e-mail and text messages is partly to blame for the decline of the comma. The ellipsis gets tossed around indiscriminately. At this rate, we may, one day, face an international shortage of full-stop periods - the key component in an ellipsis.

Samuelson argues that the downturn in the comma market is social commentary:

The comma is, after all, a small sign that flashes PAUSE. It tells the reader to slow down, think a bit, and then move on. We don't have time for that. No pauses allowed.

We should have seen it coming. When writing dates, one comma did the work that it takes 2 slashes to pull off. We require numbers to have 5 digits, instead of 4, before inserting a comma (13,067 : 3067). At some point, separating adjectival clauses with a comma became an elective process; but doesn't a non-restrictive clause beg for a general rule?
(When did I begin holding the semi-colon in higher regard than the comma? The comma has 4 times the number of legitimate uses as the semi-colon!)

I, for one, am vowing here, beginning with this post, to preserve commas by using them more. In e-mail, I commit to using ellipses less often. Picture a life without full-stops It would become nearly impossible to identify the end of a complete thought On the other hand, it would make interrupting much easier

Commas used: 26

Tags: [Comma] [Ellipsis] [Semi-Colon]

[Newsweek] [Robert Samuelson]

[National Punctuation Day] (September 24)