What's a comma between friends?

East Fife Mail, May 6, 1992

Apostrophes have become somewhat of a phobia with me in recent years. Their use seems so simple and yet most people don't give a hoot where they bung them.

How are youngsters supposed to master the intricacies of written communication when they are bombarded with punctuation and grammar which could well have been spawned by aliens.

My own children think this idiosyncrasy with punctuation is well worth ignoring but I'll persist with them the same way my schoolteacher mother did with me.

“Mines broken”. I would yelp after some mishap befell my favourite toy.

“What sort of mines?” the schoolteacher voice would boom. “Coal mines, copper mines, tin mines...?”

As a result ‘mines’ still makes me cringe but the apostrophe ... that's something else altogether.

My former editor was a real stickler for correct usage and one junior reporter, to avoid his wrath, used to batter out his copy on an old typewriter then go back and write in an apostrophe directly above the `s', allowing the more knowledgeable proof reader to topple it on either side, depending on which was correct.

Take a walk down any high street and you'll witness howlers like “potato's only 40p per lb”, or “bargains' galore inside”.

We, in journalism, are rapidly falling by the wayside in terms of use of English but should the world of newspapers crumble into the phonetics we now see emblazoned above shopfronts, then our language would be lost forever.

The front line war is now against ‘Soopadoopabeefiburga’ and ‘Gotcha Gazza’ while “childrens' toys”, “old folks' treat” and “womans'” or “womens'” guild have become side issues.

What is so difficult?

Now spelling, well that's another matter. Break fluid, trophys, skys, Ellie, Collinsburgh, tenament are just a few, over the years, which regularly crop up.

Of course, there are also the absolute screamers. One reporter, in search of details of some happening in Carnbee was actually found lost in the telephone directory trying to find a Miss Karen Bee to interview about the event.

Communication is the name of the game and, obviously, someone took something for granted in the original instruction.

There are no excuses, however, for the reporter who stated: “The pupils were given an incite into the subject'' or the other who revealed a gentleman's wartime service in the “syphoning core”.

Dozens of books have been published on the bloomers which appear in newspaper columns. The much-maligned sub-editor has always to be on his guard against the “Police found safe under bed” type of heading and is held responsible for the careless copy and double entendres which make the Esther Rantzens of this world a comfortable living.

Mistakes will always happen, all we can do is try to eliminate them while some young up-and-coming cub reporter, with one eye on the scoop of the century and another on a big by-line in a national daily, is coming at you with two mittfuls of apostrophes he wants rid of badly and any word with an ‘s’ in it is going to do.

While the strained eyes try to weed out the errors, you can't help but cringe at those missed, leaping out of a freshly-printed page winging its way to the shops and my grey-haired former schoolteacher mother whose Bible is `First Aid in English'.

I just wish, one week, she would notice how much we get write (that one was deliberate mum!).