\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Long-time Highlands University secretary and neighbor Jane Quintana told me Tuesday that after reading Work of Art, she has to watch how she speaks, to mind her p’s and q’s. Her husband Nappy agreed.<\/p>\n
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 While it’s flattering that someone’s reading the weekly column, I wonder: Do I really play the part of a language purist? Is that why I don’t have any friends? Do I really get upset over misuses of the language? I even messed up on a headline I attached to a recent editorial about Pojoaque, leaving out the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a.” And as I’ve pointed out before, some of my best friends dangle participles and end their sentences with propositions. But as long as someone else brought it up, here are some of the things I’ve noticed, particularly when it comes to signs.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite is the long-running ad on the KFC marquee advertising barbecue chicken wigs. With barbecue? I prefer my wigs with honey mustard. A restaurant in town offered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153daily specilas.” You must try them. A barber shop in town offered a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153special chair message.” And why would barbers and not psychics have the corner on this service?
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 A motel sign read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153specious parking.” Specious as in questionable? I gave up trying to define the terms to the manager who probably thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What’s the big deal?”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Notice how even the Bank of Las Vegas time-and-temp sign is now four minutes s-l-o-w, according to my GPS. For months I’ve mentioned how the clock was six minutes fast. Now, apparently, BLV is making up for gained time. Twice this week I’ve been docked for leaving work four minutes early.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 My son Ben took a cycle trip through western Canada and photographed a marquee at a drive-thru that read \u00e2\u20ac\u01532 teens for $5.” Well, if you’re inclined that way, it’s a bargain. Just be sure to get a checkup afterwards, and be sure the two teens aren’t too young. A teen, in that part of Canada, is a burger.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It’s this kind of volunteer proofreading that prompted my wife to demonstrate the insufferability of marriage about one she claims even graded her love letters when we were a-courting. The other day, I just happened to be passing by; her laptop was open and I saw a letter which I read. She often has colloquies with her sisters about the idiosyncrasies of husbands. With great reluctance, and aware of later consequences, I include her letter:
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0—
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0A few years back, Art told me he’d called a certain agency and offered to maintain their large, outdoor, and sporadically lighted sign. I wasn’t too surprised since the sight of a misplaced apostrophe or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153your” instead of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you’re” sends him into a minor tantrum and a major lecture to poor me and often the innocent person manning the closest desk. Once he carefully explained to a young, uninterested motel clerk about the difference between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153its” and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it’s” on the motel sign. I finally dragged him away since the motel clerk was part-time, not responsible, and suspicious she was being hit on.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The sign became a minor family saga since in-laws, siblings, children and even grandchildren, not to mention a spouse, all became unwilling participants in keeping the sign up to date, uncrowded and grammatically perfect. An upside-down \u00e2\u20ac\u0153w” or backward \u00c5\u2019n’ unsettles him.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The small sedan we had then was crowded with the equipment, including a long telescoping pole, and prevented the backseat from being fully functional. We went car shopping and forced the incredulous sales people to let us unload our car to try to fit the equipment into theirs.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 One woman, a seller of cars who was working along with us, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you get paid for this job?” and when Art explained that it was his volunteer job, she gave me one of those sister-to-sister looks that means, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I see what you have to put up with.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Well, after a week of fretting and squabbling, we chose the car that gracefully held the equipment and still held our three grandchildren when we were lucky enough to have them.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 After we packed everything in, we were pleased and even fixed the sign a couple of times with the grandchildren in the car.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Seemingly we’d made a sensible decision when Art’s perfectionism led him astray. When he found out that some of the information on the sign was out of date he called his boss (the agency he’d volunteered to help) and complained that he wanted the facts given to him before the event was to take place. A day or two later he got and call to turn in his equipment, as his services were no longer necessary.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Now we have a car that fits the requirements we established but no equipment to carry around.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0—
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0This experience has made me wonder whether I should withdraw my poofreading critiques from all signs in town, most of which make their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153w’s” serve as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153m’s.” But my fear is that no one would care — or notice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Long-time Highlands University secretary and neighbor Jane Quintana told me Tuesday that after reading Work of Art, she has to watch how she speaks, to mind her p’s and q’s. Her husband Nappy agreed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}