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June 28, 2010
Bleepin golden
The Hunted, originally uploaded by Señor Codo.
I don't know how much play this is getting outside Illinois, but the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial is in full swing. [Actually, the fact that Rahm Emanuel was mentioned can only mean the right-wing media is on this like attack dogs, but that is neither here nor there.]
The juiciest bits, of course, are the secret recordings made it Blago's office after authorities tapped his phones. They offer up all sorts of salacious details, including Rod's comical deliberations about how he can raise the most money. Of interest to me, a fellow runner of Blago's, is his speculation about running routes should he get his high-paying ambassadorship to India. I have a feeling New Delhi, with its 100 degree days and monsoon season is not as runner-friendly as Chicago. But I digress.
The real reason I want to write about this trial is how Blago gets quoted. Like many people, including myself, Blago tends to drop his g's at the end of sentences. As in, "I'm goin runnin," "I'm walkin here," or his most famous quote regarding Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat: "it's fuckin golden."
Now, this is what I'm talking about. When he says something like that, the newspaper puts an apostrophe on the end. "It's fuckin' golden." I know it's grammatically correct, but I don't care for this. Here's why. Dropping g's at the end of words like that is born of informality. Putting that apostrophe is way too formal. It seems, quite frankly, more natural that words with dropped g's should be spelled with no apostrophes.
I once bought this songwriting magazine because it had a big article about a band I liked, and this magazine had a songwriting contest. One of the winning entries (a country song, natch) was so overloaded with walkin' and runnin' and cryin' and drinkin', it was downright distracting. Every one of those apostrophes was like a little stop mechanism in my brain. It breaks the flow of the text, like some kind of punctuation speed bump. One of the things I learned in many of my writing/composition classes over the years was that writing should flow. And although I don't always follow those rules - or, frankly, edit that much, I always find the most readable sentences have the least amount of punctuation. I try to avoid commas when I can, because I know how it breaks up thoughts. It's the same thing with these apostrophes. So, although I will risk the ire of 5th grade English teachers everywhere, I will continue to do my spellin the way I want. Now git. Or, as the esteemed former Governor of Illinois would say, I am gonna parachute me outta here.
entry no. 1478
Posted at June 28, 2010 04:25 PM