Apostrophalypse Now

Apparently, Birmingham has decided to remove all apostrophes from its street signs.

Yes. You read that correctly: Birmingham—Birmingham, England that is, in case you were wondering if this was a non-English Birmingham with therefore a more casual relationship to the English language—is banishing the apostrophe. From its street signs. So “King’s Heath” becomes “Kings Heath” … which is a pretty significant semantic shift, when you think about it, changing it from a heath owned by the king to a heath where kings congregate to do … I don’t know, whatever kings do when they gather in large numbers.

Why have they done this? Principally, because this has apparently been a bone of contention for years. “We keep debating apostrophes in meetings,” a city councilor declared, “and we have other things to do.” Well, speaking as a veteran of English department meetings, I can understand the frustration of debating grammatical minutiae, but … seriously? You spend your council meetings debating apostrophes?

The anti-apostrophe advocates claim that apostrophes are “confusing and old-fashioned.” The same city councilor said “They confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it.”

Again … seriously? Just how easily confused do you have to be in order to get turned around by an apostrophe?

Actually, I think navigation will be a lot more difficult without the apostrophe. Just think of all the people looking for a building on King’s Heath, who wind up going to the wrong end of the city and wandering confusedly among the kings gathered at Kings Heath. It will be chaos.

Free advice to email scams: invest in a proofreader

About every other week I get an email purporting to be from RBC, telling me that something has gone wrong with my account. Aside from the obvious fact that, in the event of a serious problem, a bank isn't about to email you (along with the fact that I also get comparable email notices from Scotiabank, the Bank of Montreal and TD, none of which I have accounts with), there are often little clues in the messages themselves. I received this one this morning:

Your access to Online Services has been suspended. Due to a miss-match access code between your Security information. To enable you continue accessing your online account it will only take you few minutes to re-activate your account. Click on the link below and you will taken straight to where you can activate your account.

Now, I grant you that the last few months have certainly thrown the intelligence of those working at banks in question, but the grammar on display here is quite impressive. And by "impressive" I mean laugh-inducingly appalling.

Then again, the justifications by John Thain for handing out billions of taxpayer dollars in bonuses while the world economy goes to hell in a handcart do sort of boil down to "Me want!"

Irritating word of the day

“Impactful.”

As used this morning in the NY Times by Thomas Friedman: “The two most impactful secretaries of state in the last 50 years were [James] Baker and Henry Kissinger.”

Besides being one of those buzz-words that has surfaced in marketing lingo and therefore irritating by proxy, it is also a painfully ugly and awkward word to hear—especially considering the array of alternatives one may use, such as “effective,” “successful,” or “accomplished.” If one really wants to stress their impact however, can we not just use the actual word “impact” without resorting to awkward adjectival distortions? As in: “The two secretaries of state with the greatest impact on foreign affairs were James Baker and Henry Kissinger.”

Thomas Friedman: you’re on notice. You’ve recouped a lot of ground with me since endorsing the Iraq war by tacitly acknowledging your error, and further with your calls for realigning the energy industry with green innovation.

But seriously, “impactful”? You watch yourself.