Doesn't public signage owe us the use of punctuation...if only so people who never pick up books are at least exposed to the magic that is the comma and the power of a period?
[Leaving that one wide open, ya.]
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9 comments:
Could be dangerous, though. This weekend I saw perhaps the most egregious abuse of an apostrophe I've ever seen, on a sign outside an Origins in New Haven:
"Come in and warm you'r hands with our (whatever)."
?!
I don't know. I feel that proper punctuation is only one point of view. Although some fancy-pants, over-edumucated mofos happen to have achieved some sort of consensus about where to put commas, what apostrophes mean, and benefits of using an m-dash to offset a clause, other folks don't need to agree. As long as communication occurs, what does it matter? Heck, even if communication fails, it's not usually the end of the world.
A better case might be made for uniformity in symbolic logic and/or mathematical notation, but even then it only takes two to tango to the beat of a different little drummer boy.
By the way, do you think it should be "Guns 'n' Roses," "Guns 'n Roses," or "Guns n' Roses"?
When I was teaching[comma] I used to like emphasizing the importance of proper punctuation with something like this[colon]
Woman, without her, man is savage.
Woman without her man is savage.
It's not ideal, but it helps make the point.
Also, the first option is probably the most accurate - "Guns 'n' Roses"
Meanwhile, can we please also get people to stop doing the apostrophe in years inappropriately? It's not the 1930's unless something was possessed by 1930, but 1930s. If sans-19, THEN it's '30s. (Hello, English and history major. Double dork load!)
I'm not sure that anybody would actually ever say either of those examples.
I like rocks and birds and sunsets.
Another option is:
Woman, without her man, is savage.
My inner German just sprang to life, to make that sentence...
"Permissable: rocks, birds, sunsets."
Then, we - as readers - are to deduce their relationship. In this context, clearly all three are necessary as birds are active and easily spotted at sunset, which makes it easier to hit them with rocks.
Ahoy!
Also, let's see more of this "NICE" bidness.
Germaine to the original of all this, I'd like to extend a finger and point towards:
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/11922
and most of his other stuff.
Nice is nice because it makes you giggle, and knowing that makes me giggle.
Also -
I like: "i like kissing this and that of you," and, "...eyes big love-crumbs..."
Oh, E.E., you cad.
excuse me, "e.e."
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