In a copyrighted article dated January 31, 2009, the Associated Press has exposed the soft underbelly of the current state of the English language in, of all places, England.
The French have their Académie française to keep the linguistic wolves at bay and supposedly protect their precious language from all enemies, foreign and domestic, but English, alas, has no such Maginot Line to fall back on. People are free to do whatever they jolly well please to the English language. And in Birmingham, England, my friends, they have done it, reaching a new high in absurdity.
I direct your attention to the article, “Its a catastrophe for the apostrophe in Britain” by writer Meera Selver.
I hardly know what to say. We could, as Cole Porter did not write and Ella Fitzgerald did not sing, say, “Its delightful, its delicious, its delectable, its delirious, its dilemma, its de limit, its deluxe, its de-lovely!”
Or we could, as Cole Porter also did not write and Ella Fitzgerald did not sing, say, “Lets call the whole thing off.”
Or, if you think those responses are a bit extreme, we could just try to remember what Sergeant Phil Esterhaus did not tell us every week on Hill Street Blues back in the eighties: “Lets be very careful out there.”
