"An Essay on Man," ii, 1-18, by Alexander Pope

Apostrophe's Extinction Signals Apocalypse's Arrival

(image: representation of an apostrophe, or of a tear, or of both)


One occasional reader of this blog relayed a link to a news story which reports that new or replaced street signs that once contained apostrophes will no longer contain them because "they're confusing and old fashioned"--the apostrophes, not the signs or decision-makers, apparently.

The link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,486144,00.html

That this event should occur in Britain, where precise men with incendiary tempers such as A.E. Housman, Samuel Johnson, Lord Byron, and Alexander Pope once strode the earth (owing to some infirmities, Byron and Pope hobbled a bit, no worries), strikes an apostrophe-lover with a combination of punches.

Nonetheless, we who teach English and/or care about the language saw this one coming decades ago, for the apostrophe has been disappearing from college papers (for example--this is not to put the blame on college students) for a long time. We "correct" the papers, write something in the margin, perhaps even spend seconds in class discussing the apostrophe. The students, ignore our corrections, marginalia, and blather, as they should. They are college students. They have certain duties to uphold. Each has his or her role in the academy.

And having studied German, I knew that the possessive apostrophe had disappeared long ago.

Nonetheless, let me point out that the reasoning behind the decision to eliminate the apostrophe would not pass muster with Hume's (or Humes) or any philosopher's big toe, not considered the seat of logic.

The apostrophe's old-fashioned? Well, so is printing itself, which dates back to the 15th century. So is the monarchy. So are those goddamned wigs they wear in court over there. I say the wigs should go first; then maybe we'll pretend to discuss the demise of the apostrophe. The apostrophe has a clear semiotic use. The wig has a murky one, at best. The apostrophe is unobtrusive. The wig is not, and I'd (Id) be willing to bet that those wigs stink. I've never known an apostrophe to need a good cleaning or to harbor fleas.

Confusing? Imagine a sign that read St. John's Wood. Or St. John's Wood, One Kilometer. I'm just not feeling the confusion coming from either sign.

Now consider a sign that says William's Pub. Then one that says Williams Pub. The first sign is not confusing. The pub belongs to William, or at least William figures or figured in the history of the pub. Such niceties may be sorted out nicely in the pub over a pint, but they are niceties, not sources of confusion. Now consider the second sign. Is it William's Pub, singular? Williams' Pub, plural--the pub owned by the Williams family? One is so disgusted by the lack of clarity that one will go to another pub.

One might assert that the absence of an apostrophe will either have no effect (let's [or lets] be generous and say 10% of the time) or will, indeed, cause confusion, an absence of precision being more likely to create confusion than a persence of precision (that is my assumption)

Let us further assume that those in charge, or what Gogol called Persons of Consequence, are lying. They want to to save money and time, which are the same thing in their minds. It takes X amount of time to punch an apostrophe into a sign and then paint it. Multiply by Y, and you have an amount (illusory, of course) that you are saving. Read Dickens' [or I guess I should write Dickens and surrender) Hard Times for a flavor of this mentality.

Or maybe this is their revenge on English teachers!

I don't (I mean dont) like the slothful use of "old fashioned," unsupported by data, although my use of slothful begged the question, I grant. I don't like an assertion concerning "useless" when the assertion is not followed closely by reasoning, logic, or at least something dressed as good sense.

I like the apostrophe. It adds clarity. Nonetheless, I let it go long ago, even as I ritualisitically point out its absence (or should I write it's absence?) or its incorrect presence in papers.

With the impending official demise of the apostrophe in England, the apocaplyse's, I mean the apocolypses, intial phase has begun. Whats a person to do? Store a years worth of food? :-)

Listen, this is how loyal, to a fault, not just to people but apostrophes I am: In those rare instances when I use my telephone to "text" (sigh, text is a verb), I use the apostrophe. What percentage of texters use it? I would guess 1% at most. Nonetheless, all hail the corporate design-dude or design-dudette who allowed the phone to be programmed to include an apostrophe. Hes my hero or shes my hero, of sorts. I mean he's my hero or she's my hero.

National Lampoon might write the headline this way: ENGLAND BAN'S [SIC] APOSTROPHE, GOES IMMEDIATELY TO HELL'S ANTECHAMBER.

"Should all apostrophes be forgot and ne-ver come to mind . . . ." Cue tears, pull out handkerchief, head to William's Pub.

Hash? Sheesh!

So we trekked all the way to Seattle to meet a garrulous group who had trekked all the way from Whidbey Island; we rendezvoused at the Sorrento Hotel, which refers to itself as "the longest running luxury hotel in Seattle" (I didn't see it move, let alone run), and we "brunched."

To my mild astonishment, if astonishment can be mild, corned beef hash was listed on the menu. It was easily the most interesting dish listed, and the sight of the words made me a wee bit nostalgic, so I had to order the dish.

Alas and alack, I was served, not hash, but simply strips of corned beef. I managed to find sustenance in what I ate, but nonetheless, I was disappointed that I hadn't actually been served hash, which is ground-up meat. My parents and many in their generation routinely made hash with a cast-iron meat-grinder. Hash of this sort is connected with some social-class issues and "stretching a dollar." If you have a piece of tough meat left over, one way to use it is to grind it up into a hash and serve it for dinner or breakfast or both. Probably through the 1950s and into the 1960s, hash was also a mainstay of diners' breakfast-menus. One hardly ever sees it now. It''s much too folksy, and it probably takes too much time to make, although I think you may still buy it in a can.

A fellow I was dining with had also remembered hash of the old-fashioned kind, and he opined that, in this economy, corned beef hash might make a comeback. He also observed that Spam (referring to meat in a can, not to unwanted email messages) has become much more popular and that in Hawaii it has remained popular because Hawaii has to import most of its meat. "Spam and hash are inexpensive ways of getting protein," he said, cutting to the economic and metabolic chase.

According the the OED online, hash (as referring to ground-up meat), goes back linguistically to the 17th century, and Samuel Pepys's (pronounced Peeps) famous diary is cited as a source. Not too long thereafter, "hash" took on a derogatory connotation, meaning a mess, as in "he made a hash of things." A poem by Alexander Pope from 1735 is cited in this case. Pope uses the term figuratively and writes of a "hash of tongues," a mixture of languages--not ground-up tongues.

Then the term "settle [his] hash"--as in vanquishing a person--came into the language in the early 1800s. I almost never hear the term anymore, and in fact I didn't hear it all that often in my childhood.

Apparently, hash-browned potatoes, as a term, arose in the language after 1900. Probably most of us think of hash-browned potatoes as fried (browned) potato slices, but some people think of them as bits of potatoes fried--hence the link to hash, I assume.

As to corned beef itself: it refers to salted beef. "Corning" is a form of "curing" meet, and the connection is to corns or pieces of salt, not to corn itself. A "corned beef and cabbage" meal is still associated with Easter Sunday and with Irish cuisine. I rather liked corned beef and cabbage when I was growing up. The (boiled) cabbage (of the light green, not of the purple, variety) was served with vinegar.

"Hashish" actually pre-dates "hash," going all the way back to 1598 and referring, of course, to processed Indian hemp-plant, which was also called "bhang." I think I prefer "bhang" to "hash" in this instance--not that I know anything about smoking hash, but I did have a friend once who smoked it, and according to him, it was mightily more powerful than marijuana and had the effect of removing the top of his head, gently. "Hash" as referring to "hashish" came into the language in the 1950s, at least according to the OED online, which cites Norman Mailer, of all people. Perhaps things got a little complicated in big cities when people walked into diners and asked for "a plate of hash." "Would that be the Irish or the Indian hash, sir? There's a bit of a price-difference, and are you a cop?"

Being a nerd to the third power, I had to wonder of "hashish" was related in any way to "assizes," as in "the court of assizes" in Britain. Nope. "Assizes" refers to judgments, and it's related to the Old French "assise," which concerns sitting down. So if you go to the court of assizes, you and the judge and your expensive barristers and solicitors sit down, and you get your judgment, unless you're stuck in Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Bleak House, but then that's the court of chancery.

And finally, on a football (American) field, there are small white dashes or marks toward the center of the field, and these are called "hash-marks," but the linkage is to marks on a military uniform, also called "hash-marks," and as far as I can tell, there's no connection to smoking hash or eating corned beef hash, although the rules of American football seem to have been devised by people who had smoked hash, and I know at least one NFL referee who seems to make rulings on the field without benefit of the top of his head.

Oh my goodness, I've made a hash of this post.