Worlds in motion

Even I'm bored by the football World Cup, although Portugal beating North Korea 7-0 may have been a bizarre highlight given the dearth of goals the tournament has brought our way so far. Thank goodness, therefore, for a bit of a distraction in other places, namely, er, Norwich, coincidentally currently bidding to become a UNESCO City Of Literature. Kicking off yesterday at the Writers' Centre was the Worlds Literature Festival (which surely should have an apostophe - where the devil's Lynne Truss when you need her? Why, presenting daily essays on the World Cup on Radio 4's Today programme, of course).


Perhaps in a nod to the hosts of the omnipotent soccer competition, this particular week of fixtures includes an evening with four South African writers. Proceedings wind down on Sunday, but between now and then friend of Words & Fixtures and fellow Manchester blogger Adrian "Art Of Fiction" Slatcher will be reporting live from the various events taking place, from workshops on "strange" poetry writing to talks on how to publish long fiction, courtesy of Manchester University lecturers John McAuliffe and MJ Hyland respectively. The train from Piccadilly must have been rammed.

Television, the drug of the nation

So it's 11.01.10, a pleasant Binary wannabe of a date, and I've made it this far into the year without getting all grumpy and gripey about grammar, at least here on the interweb. Still, it had to happen at some point...
The Stretford branch of PC World has a sign up informing me, you and the angry man in the 4x4 as we drive past that they currently have stacks of TV's in stock. And a few superfluous apostrophes, too, if you want them. I think they're going cheap.

Extreme methods of interrogation

This post is dedicated to my brother-in-law. He laid down the grammar gauntlet, and who am I to deny him an answer? The challenge:

"What is the word and symbol for a ?!. Apparently a single punctuation mark was once created for the two. Anyway I looked on wiki and didn't see the answer. I did find this quote though;

Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.
F. Scott Fitzgerald"

My reply:

"With regards to your punctuation query, as far as I know, there is no such thing in proper usage, although an exclamation mark is often used after a question mark in informal writing such as letters, emails, websites etc (but obviously these are full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar, so they're hardly going to be held up as examples of good writing) and in cartoon strips and graphic novels (where the rules are different - it's fantasy!). For the purpose of describing the phenomenon in this usage, some bright spark (an enterprising advertising bod, no less) came up with the name 'interrobang' or 'interabang' - there's more at this Wikipedia link (although we all know not to believe everything we read on Wikipedia, so who knows). If you want to know more about ligatures, see this Words & Fixtures post.

"It is generally considered bad form to use punctuation marks together, so most people (well, writers and editors, anyway) inwardly groan when they see, for example, reams of exclamation marks together, which happens a lot these days in emails and texts. An exclamation mark is supposed to create enough impact on its on, and it should be used sparingly otherwise the impact is lost. You may notice the general lack of exclamation marks in the broadsheets while tabloids, however, love them. Go figure.

"An exclamation mark following a question mark is unnecessary and is merely emphasising that you'd noticed something or find something hilarious and are pointing it out, so it's a bit like showing off. As The Great Gatsby author you quote so eloquently details, it's kind of akin to laughing at your own jokes.

"Hope this helps. Regards etc..."

So there you have it. Interrobang: the upstart punctuation superhero on the block. Or possibly a super-strength drain unblocker with a crap sense of humour. Any more random grammar queries, dear reader, please feel free to get in touch via the usual communication channels.

(By weird coincidence, while writing this, the interrobang symbol appeared in my Twitter feed after one of my peeps used the new Retweet facility to share something by @FakeAPStylebook, who uses the mark as their avatar and seems to be a grammar geek. We like.)

A passing thought on Sesame Street

When I was 10, I moved house and had to change school. It was already apparent that we had gone up in the world because we now lived in a detached house and the neighbours didn't scream at each other after closing time and my dad no longer turned the hi-fi speakers round to face the party wall and blast out prog rock. Things were different now. Plus it was the 80s.

When I went to my new school, it was also apparent that we had gone up in the world. Everybody except me used fountain pens and had ink-stained fingers. I had a stubby bit of pencil and a rubber. Thankfully, I was quite good at spelling (imagine!) so at least my new classmates couldn't pick on me for being thick. Thankfully, too, my mum had persistently told me off for pronouncing things scousely so I didn't have too strong an accent.

One memory of many I have from the whole two years I spent at this school (others include: sneaking into the headmaster's office to look at the academic achievement records; learning all the songs from Cats, and having a massive war of words with a horrid girl called Kate) was sitting in a sun-filled room watching a video about grammar. There must have been a teachers' strike or a pandemic or something because a) there were loads of us in the room watching the tape and b) we never watched TV at this school; it was, of course, considered too low-brow.


What I remember from the show (which I'm pretty certain wasn't one of those schools and colleges productions but was in fact Sesame Street - happy 40th birthday Big Bird et al, BTW. Great show, guys) was the explanation of punctuation, and the memory aid for remembering the word itself (which adds to my confusion as to why we were watching this programme - weren't we a bit old?): Punk (accompanied by a sequence of a man with a mohican-style hairdo) - Chew (with a shot of bubblegum being masticated and blown) - Asian (footage of a person of Asian decent walking by). Crazy.

Righting the wrongs of apostrophe placement

If there's one thing you all know about me by now (and, in the words of the ginger-haired Manc one, if you don't know me by now, then you'll never ever know me. I sat next to him once in the "legendary" Hacienda, BTW. There's one to tell your grandchildren), it's that I'm a stickler for grammar rules. I get particularly peeved by the misuse of apostrophes, and believe on-the-spot fines should be introduced to weed out the worst offenders.

Imagine my joy, then, when my good friend technicalfault sent me this handy guide on How To Use An Apostrophe. And if you can't work out the correct usage of the popular punctuation mark after perusing this picture-plentiful tutorial, I will be contacting the authorities to revoke your A-star GCSEs! I'm serious. This is the power I wield.

Let's study guide

I like Trof, I really do. I like all three of them, actually, but especially the one in Fallowfield as it's just near the Loop and handy when on a thirsty bike ride. I like that one in particular because it has its own-brand cider and lager, both of which are good and cheap, and it's all small and, er, intimate. I also like the whole thing going on with the "quirky decor" (as they would say in the old-fashioned press) and the funny little drawings with speech bubbles on the menus and the fact that the people who go in there don't mind in the slightest acting a bit weird, like using plastic cutlery they brought with them or talking into a mobile phone as if it were a tricorder (do you think that should take a cap - is it a trademark in the imaginary future?).


So I was in Trof Fallowfield, self-proclaimed "eating and drinking palace" (I remember when it was a really crummy second-hand bike shop), just having "the one" (which - whaddya know? - before long became "the four"), and, while I was waiting at the bar for my drinks to be poured, noticed the cute little sign flagging up the tips jar. I can't remember the exact wording but it was saying something like: give us some money "and then later lets go dancing".

I know, I'm sorry, I can't help it - I got out my Biro (that, I know, is capped up) and drew on an apostrophe, just like that; as if I owned the place. It was in the same style (blobby) and colour (black) as the writing, mind: I'm all for style. The girl behind the bar looked at me, perhaps not surprisingly, accusingly. "Just making it grammatical," I said perkily. God, I'd not even touched the fizzy pop by then, either. Do I need to be put down before I turn into Lynne Truss or can I still be rehabilitated before I go too far?