The Contract
by Debi Orton
It's summer, so I'm not going to bore you with a searching exploration of my personal life.
Summer is a time for taking it easy, to relax and contemplate whatever it is that people contemplate lying nearly naked, broiling under ultraviolet radiation, risking cancer and sunstroke. In case your contemplation requires a topic, here's something I'd like you to spend a little time thinking about.
*****
I was walking along, minding my own business, preoccupied with trying to prepare myself for the meeting I was on the way to attend, when I nearly walked into a sandwich board sign.
"Where is the Farmer's Market? It's summer, and the Farmer's have all moved outside."
I've worked in this complex for more than 25 years, and I know that the "Farmer's Market" is in fact, not a single farmer's market, as the sign's punctuation implies, but a market that dozens of farmers participate in. So in this case, the plural possessive, "Farmers'" should have been used. The second instance of "Farmer's" should not have had an apostrophe at all -- it's a simple plural usage.
Now, I know that not everyone has an affinity for writing. On a daily basis, I see writing that would curdle the soul of anyone who loves the English language. So when accommodations must be made, I can make them. But my first instinct in this case was to find someone to chew out.
This sign was composed by a state agency, and was located in the middle of a large state government complex in the capital city of New York State. They clearly should have known better, and if not, should have availed themselves of reference material.
These errors seem to be just one more symptom of the dumbing-down of America. When the leader of our nation routinely mangles the English language, to the extent that such mistakes are now commonly known as "Bushisms," and considered humorous, it makes me wonder if people have lost the ability to recognize language as a discipline, as something that has rules and syntax that convey meaning and nuance.
How many times lately have you bought a commercially produced magazine, or a book put out by a major publishing house, only to discover simple errors, errors which should have been easy to identify and correct before being committed forever to the modern library?
Lately, I have not found a book or magazine without an error. Granted, I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to grammar, punctuation and spelling, but the errors I've noted weren't esoteric examples.
And I know that language is a living thing that naturally experiences a degree of evolution over time. Were that not the case, we'd still be speaking the English of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
So as you lounge on the beach or at your cabin in the mountains, I challenge you to take some time to consider language, and the value it has to you as a reader or a writer. Readers can connect with the writer's intent only by interpreting what is written according to the common rules of vocabulary, punctuation, and grammar. Once those rules begin to degrade, how can you be sure what the writer's intent is? What rules are being used?
Reading and writing are connected by an implicit contract of a mutual language. Only by preserving that mutual language can we continue to connect, writer to reader.