![]() ![]() ![]() The grocery manager explained that the express checkout lane's sign didn't read "10 items or fewer" because it had "less letters" the way it was. The technician would listen politely to my explanation of the difference between "lie" and "lay" and then tell me to "lay still" while she took the picture. "No," I replied, "I have information about the meaning of the word 'respond.'" I gave up this occasional indulgence in irritability and learned to turn the other ear, so to speak, not only in order to spare my beloved embarrassment, but because it finally became apparent to me that the cause was hopeless. "Do you have more information about the crime?" the reporter asked. ![]() ![]() I once called a television news reporter who had informed the audience that some officer of public safety had "responded to 1643 South Boardwalk"-only after I'd heard this barbarism from him several times, of course. In times past, before being brought to heel by my patient spouse, I would, for example, be unable to let pass an x-ray technician's instruction to "lay down" upon its being uttered a third time (two I could bear). Truss calls a "stickler," i.e., one acutely sensitive to transgressions of the rules and conventions of the mother tongue. Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to PunctuationĮats, Shoots & Leaves brings to mind one sort of personal failing I thought I had long since overcome and threatens to provoke its rejuvenation. ![]()
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