OPINION: What kind of person would...?
Mar. 3—The last Monday morning in February was already a lively one, even at 6:30 a.m.
As usual, I was at the NSU pool, waiting for them to reinstall the lane markers, and when I checked Facebook, I had two private messages and one on on my timeline, asking if my son and his fiancée were OK. Naturally that freaked me out, and I went to their timelines, hoping I wouldn't see that something terrible had happened, but suspecting if that had been the case, I would have gotten a call or a text first. Bizarrely, it occurred to me they might have broken up right in the middle of wedding plans, and that one of them announced it on a timeline. With social media these days, we feel compelled to tell everyone our business.
Although I generally text to avoid interrupting a car sale for him, I called Cole and asked him if they were OK. This is the sort of thing a mother will do, even if the child is in his 60s. When he said he was fine, I asked why people would be sending me such messages. He said, "Uh, because of tornadic activity in our area last night?" Who in the world says "tornadic activity" besides a meteorologist? Cole is an anthropologist currently selling Hondas. He lives in Oklahoma City, though, and he was on his way to work in Norman — where the "activity" occurred — at the time of my call.
Meanwhile, right before all this excitement, I was heading into The Fit, en route to the natatorium, when I noticed a large apparatus on the other side of the parking lot — a boom lift, as it it turned out, but it had what I read as "JUG Lift" painted on the side. Two older gentleman — and by older, I mean around my age — were standing outside, and I said to them, "What is that thing?" One of them said, "What thang?" I pointed and said, "The thing with 'Jug Lift' painted on the side." I should add, at this point, that I wasn't wearing glasses. The other guy, who had striking long black hair and a turquoise earring, said, "That does not say, 'jug lift,' it says 'J-L-G Lift.' If it were the other way, that's a brassy-ear, innit?"
I cracked up, though he kept a poker face and didn't laugh. Who in the world says "brassiere" besides a lingerie saleswoman? I'm pretty sure that's the first male I've heard use that word, and I thought about suggesting he pursue a career as a comic. He could replace that racist Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. I never liked that strip, anyway; in fact, I don't like any comic strip since Gary Larson called it quits. And what kind of lunatic says, "Just get the f*** away from Black people," based on the results of a loaded poll produced by Rasmussen Reports? That's not credible — but then again, no poll is. Anyone who knows how to remove cookies can stack the deck.
Semantics are interesting, and if you don't believe me, just ask Bob McQuitty. He writes a column for our Wednesday paper called "Grammar Dog." Bob uses all manner of punctuation to make his point — so much so that the series of punctuation situations in his columns, which is highly unusual in journalism, blew the digital mind of our word program, NewsEditPro. It was asking itself what kind of writer would cram into a single sentence several punctuation marks like "-ing"? and "'-ized"? and expect an adequate translation. We have to load Bob's column directly to our website, through the BLOX system, then copy and paste it into a "forme" on InDesign, which we use to build our pages. That's OK, though, because we're about to get new equipment and undergo training to be fully integrated into BLOX. It's tough to teach and old dog like myself new tricks, but I've been struggling through the template-building process for a month or so now. I'll survive.
What I might not survive is the changing of the English language. Oh, I'm not talking about punctuation, although that's a problem; I complained about it earlier last month. According to Merriam Webster, there's often more than one way to spell a word — judgement v. judgment, for example — but the Associated Press, in its effort to streamline things and avoid reader confusion, uses only one. In the case of the aforementioned options, it's "judgment." But AP, like society itself, is ever-changing, so it has made a habit lately of removing hyphens. What kind of a person, the AP "deciders" must have asked themselves, can effectively use hyphens? The rumor on the "news" side of most publications is that incessant whining from sports editors — not universally known for their grammatical proficiency — demanded the change.
I think it's fair to ask what sort of person would ramble through a column, asking irrelevant questions, shuffling through mundane subjects, and then expect to be read by a discerning audience. I'm not sure what I expect, but I can tell you what kind of person engages in these activities: an aging woman, who wears bling and crazy boots and swims laps at pools, and who is trying to keep the industry she loves alive.
