|
Four horsemen of the apostrophe
By Tom Conoboy
____________________
It has been reported that the Oxford comma may
be about to become extinct. The last known sighting was in a reprint of the
works of Alfred, Lord, and Tennyson, and doubt reigns as to whether this was, in
any case, merely a typographical, historical, and literary error.
A spokesman for Pedants Anonymous said: "I think the last time one was seen
was back in the days of bakelite radios, ration books, and black, and white
televisions."
Aldus Manutius Jnr., editor of "Inferred and Implied Fusspottery",
concurred. "I think what is happening is that the Oxford commas are being
kidnapped to be re-used in completely spurious plural form’s. It’s
diabolical. The perpetrators should be hanged by their possessive pronouns and
have rotten tomato’s, fish, and chip’s pelted at them."
Concern has also been raised over the long-term viability of the semi-colon.
Mister Manutius continued: "Once, it had a rich and varied life, it was
used in long, compound sentences, it was used to link two independent clauses
with no connecting words, this helped to make the meaning clearer. They were
seen the length and breadth of the country, in Lands’ End, Cornwall, John o
Groat’s, Highland, and every town, hamlet, and village, in,between."
His hand’s shaking and sobbing, he continued, "It is inevitable that the
colon will follow suit. What will happen is this, it will be replaced by a
sloppy, comma. We will completely forget that colon’s have four uses, to
introduce list’s, separate related sentence’s, commence quotations’ or
introduce appositives. And lets face it, even I don’t know what those last
one’s are any more. It make’s you weep."
At this point, Mr Manutiu’s began to break down, much like his grammer. And
speling. And, like, everything man. He raised a hypothetical glass to the
influence’s in his life, his parents, Big Bird and Joseph Conrad. Much good
they did him, he thought. Issuing a clarion call for clarity he continued
"woman without her man is helpless. And you cant say clearer than
that."
"I would question that," replied his wife. "Except I gather there
are question mark’s about the future of question mark’s because of the
idiotic use of the Australian raised inflection at the end of sentence’s?
Suggests question mark’s where there shouldn’t be? Render’s them
meaningle’ss?"
"Whatever" said sadly Aldus Manutius.
In a final blow for grammarians, pedant’s, and bureaucrats’ everywhere, it
has been reported that; because of the spread of chatrooms: speech mark’s are
also on the verge of extinction.
Mr Manutius was unable to comment directly, but is reported to be mad,
furiou’s, and livid.
____________________
Tom Conoboy wrote this with the sole purpose of
driving spellcheck programs and editing staff out of their tiny little minds.
|
