A Bouquet of Apostrophes for National Punctuation Day

If you’re reading this on September 24, be forewarned that (thanks to the tireless efforts of founder Jeff Rubin) it’s National Punctuation Day. You just barely have time to dash out and buy your sweetheart a nosegay of commas or one perfect semicolon.

I jest, of course, though correct punctuation is no laughing matter. This holds true even in the movie industry, where linguistic correctness is low on the scale of priorities. My former boss, Roger Corman, scored big in the Sixties with a movie about the Hells Angels, who as social outlaws have never bothered using an apostrophe to indicate the possessive. Maybe that’s why my writing students -- iconoclasts all – drive me crazy with their cavalier approach to punctuation.

Here are some actual examples culled from the scripts I read last spring for the advanced rewrite course I offered through UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program. I’ve changed a few proper names to help conceal the authors’ identities. And yes, do notice how the Writers’ Program has totally won my heart by correctly putting its apostrophe after the plural noun. Anyway, here goes:

These recipe’s were taught to me by my mother.

Machine’s flash and churn around her.

Anne nods, let’s go of the dish, turns back to the sink.

Now, lets drink a toast.

I think its best never to argue with a man of the cloth.

The man who ruined both Smith brother’s lives.

I’ll bet your freezing out here in this cold.

Your loud.

He won’t even notice your gone.

You’re little brother came to me.

You’re sure their over twenty one?  (Well, at least the “you’re” contraction is correct!)

As a former English major, I’ve got to say, “Aaargh!”  I can only suggest that these grammatically-challenged aspiring screenwriters check out the work of Constance Hale. Connie, a fellow member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, is the go-to person at the New York Times for clever, witty columns about language. She’s written several popular books on the subject, including Wired Style: Principles of English Usage for the Digital Age and Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose. Her latest, which I read cover to cover, is Vex, Hex, Smash, and Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing. From her titles, it should be instantly obvious that Connie is not a stuffy schoolmarm type. She herself makes clear that she’s not going to lecture us into submission: “The goal is not hypercorrect grammar, but hyperpowerful prose. It’s not savoir grammaire but savoir faire.” On the other hand, she remains a stickler for strong, forceful, and accurate language: “Let’s say it again: It’s only by caring about precision, nuance, and tone that we write with power.”

Connie’s books are hardly addressed specifically to screenwriters. But some of her suggestions, particularly those relating to the imperative voice, would come in mighty handy for someone trying to write concise, punchy stage directions. This is a woman who can make language sing. Here, in passing, is a sentence I love from her section describing predicates: “But what about those other characters grabbing on to the verbs to become part of the action, or just lurking in doorways, crouching in the shadows, slipping into a sentence at the last minute?”

 

I should add that Connie Hale grew up in the Hawaiian Islands (and is, by the way, an expert on traditional hula). When writing the name of her native state, she always adds an apostrophe: Hawai’i. So she’s earned a place in my punctuation tribute. A verbal hibiscus lei to you, Ms. Hale!   
 

Apostrophe error on storefront window, Healdsburg, California

Misplaced apostrophes at Jack London State Historic Park, Glen Ellen, California

Bob Dylan: “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Punctuating)”

Hooray! It’s one of my favorite holidays, National Punctuation Day, as proclaimed by the high priest of the apostrophe, Jeff Rubin. Jeff and wife Norma have taken it as their life mission to spread the punctuation gospel.

Hollywood has not always treated punctuation with respect. In fact, basic English grammar doesn’t always do so well in films and on TV. When I was a kid, parents and teachers tut-tutted over a cigarette commercial telling the world that “Winstons taste good, like a cigarette should.” So loud was the outcry that the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company publicly apologized for using “like” instead of the more correct “as,” even while insisting that the main point was the great taste of their product. (Those were the days, of course, when adults worried about correct grammar, while cigarette ads were all over the tube as a matter of course.)

But I feel obliged to focus today on punctuation, especially the elusive apostrophe. In the late Sixties there appeared a modest black-and-white documentary that captured the “Up yours!” spirit of Baby Boomers, coming of age at a time of war and urban strife. In 1965, D. A. Pennebaker accompanied Bob Dylan on his debut concert tour of England. The resulting documentary, released in May 1967, was a raw and revealing look at a young man often called the spokesman of his generation. Its title was Dont Look Back.

In 1965 Bob Dylan was a twenty-four-year-old folk balladeer who had not yet stunned his fans by switching to electric guitar. Through such protest songs as “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” he spoke to his young listeners about the scourge of racism and nuclear apocalypse. By the time of his British concert tour, he had acquired a global following, but was increasingly wary of his growing fame. Dylan’s unease manifested itself in Dont Look Back as prickly behavior that bordered on arrogance, underscoring his refusal to be sucked into the starmaker machinery on which the recording industry relies. Whether meeting other musicians or jousting with the press, he came off on film as guarded and sometimes downright hostile.

A prime target of Dylan’s on-camera barbs was the London-based arts and science correspondent for Time magazine, who during a tense Q & A was made to look foolish and out of touch. So it’s no surprise that the Time review of Dont Look Back was extremely harsh, calling the film “a ninety-six-minute essay in cinematic truthtelling that may explain how the thin-voiced bard of the bedraggled became a subcultural prophet and a millionaire by combining the most resonant clichés of alienation and some not very distinguished music.” What Time’s reviewer missed (aside from the quality of Dylan’s musical output) is key to what attracted the young fans: the fact that Dylan, both offstage and on, so completely negated what their parents would consider appropriate entertainment. His slapdash mode of dress, his laconic on-stage manner, even his droning and nasal voice were affronts to the middle-aged. He represented the quintessential rebel, the surly punk who had no use for his elders. Even that missing apostrophe in the film’s title hinted that its subject was a rebel, pushing hard against the rules of polite society.

Today Bob Dylan is still going it alone, and still making music. His 35th studio album, Tempest, was released on September 11, 2012. No telling, though, whether his attitude toward apostrophes has improved. (Or whether he’s figured out that “alright” is not really a word.) Nonetheless, I hope he’ll join me in celebrating National Punctuation Day.

Punctilious about Punctuation

I’ve just been informed that September 24 was National Punctuation Day. Who knew? When I got the word, it was too late to throw a party, so I’m celebrating belatedly. Though I write about movies and moviemaking, I started out as an English major. And, as fans of Garrison Keillor are well aware, we English majors are a sensitive breed. (We may not be employable, but -- when it comes to English usage -- we never swerve from the path of linguistic correctness. What, never? Well, hardly ever.) So here’s my tribute to the role played by punctuation, and proofreading in general, within Hollywood.

It was my good fortune, as a UCLA doctoral candidate in English, to be hired by Roger Corman to assist in the making of exploitation films. Needless to say, Corman’s subject matter was rather different from what I encountered in graduate seminars on Macbeth and Moby Dick. (Or maybe not so different. Sex, violence . . . it’s just that Shakespeare and Melville used much fancier language.) My job as story editor included readying scripts for production. That’s when the English major in me took over. Of course I understood about dialogue: that characters need to speak colloquially, even idiosyncratically, to convey their essence to the audience. But I insisted that, when it came to stage directions and descriptive passages, everything be grammatically impeccable. And, of course, correctly spelled and punctuated.

Some of the writers with whom I worked balked at my insistence that their scripts be error-free. Writer-director Jim Wynorski (responsible for Chopping Mall and such later masterpieces as The Bare Wench Project) griped that since “you don’t shoot punctuation,” there was really no need to stress out about verbal correctness. Maybe so. But I would remind Jim that scripts (even Roger Corman scripts) are widely circulated. They are read by actors, agents, managers, directors, producers, and distributors. At least some of these folks were English majors too, once upon a time. Several Hollywood players have told me that when they spot a language error in a script submission, it’s like a red flag. When they come across two or three, they stop reading.

Punctuation exists in the first place to promote clarity. Otherwise, a phrase like “Let’s eat Grandma” is easily misunderstood. It’s especially counterproductive when a gaffe involving punctuation or spelling gives a reader the giggles. I still recall a letter in which a prospective Corman writer tried to interest me in a Vietnam War drama that climaxed in “a scene of wonton destruction.” All I could picture was American grunts and Viet Cong on the field of battle, pelting one another with Chinese dumplings. Ooops! And a spell-checker would never have caught that error. Nor, of course, the misplaced apostrophe in the slippery homophones its and it’s.

I urge my readers to check out the National Punctuation Day site, which offers many entertaining features. Meanwhile, I’ll just contemplate my secret desire to slip into a mask and tights, then -- as the Apostrophe Avenger -- invade shopping malls at midnight to correct badly-punctuated signage. I’ll admit, though, that while serving as Concorde’s resident intellectual, I once deliberately wrote an apostrophe error into a script. It involved a scene description: two salt-of-the-earth characters were living in a cozy mountain cabin decorated with one of those little wooden signs proclaiming “The Daltons.” I added an apostrophe before the “s,” shocking the author, who knew this was incorrect. Yes, I said, but these characters were exactly the type who would make that egregious goof.