10:28 am | 10 April 2003 | the English rage continues

My math skills are on par with those of a paraplegic donkey, but i don't just mangle, say, my taxes and turn 'em in to the IRS with a Post-It note that says "Uh, i THINK it's like $600, but whatever." No, i pay an accountant to do it. In the same sense, I fully understand that spelling/grammar are not some people's forte, but why, then, put those people in charge of signage?

(I would also like to interject, for the record, that while many people view the butchering of English as a particularly American activity, I have read quite a few British magazines [especially art and/or fashion mags] wherein the fact-checkers appear to be suffering from some kind of weird spelling imperialism. For example, if you fly to Amsterdam to see the new Viktor & Rolf line, don't spell his name "Victor" simply because that's how it's done at home. This is not an isolated incident. Anyway.)

I want to start a guerilla task force that takes grammar to the streets. We will be armed with letters printed on label paper and we will go about under cover of night, correcting spelling and usage errors stealthily. I will have a utility belt that will dispense sticky apostrophes and quotation marks. At each location, we will leave a Citation for Language Violation and some sort of mark (probably typographical) indicating we were there. We'll be like Guerilla Girls and Zorro and your high-school English teacher and Robin Hood, but more so. Because it is, apparently, my duty (penance?) in life to try to repair the things nobody else cares about, killing myself in the process. Well, i have to work off the caffiene from all this Diet Coke somehow. clm.

p.s. Heh, someone apparently found my blog when Googling for "drunk bride." Ha!!!