I was unsure which part of the British invasion to talk about this week: the decision in Britain to drop the use of apostrophes on street signs, or the total ignoramus on ABC’s latest installment of Wife Swap whose rhetoric curdled the milk in my tea. Then I decided that either way the poor Brits, for whom I do have a high degree of respect, didn’t need my spleen-venting at all to feel bad this week in light of both of these disasters.
First, just because people have issues about where apostrophes go in grammar usage, why remove them? Can’t we just get along with them and fix them when they’re put in the wrong place? We need tolerance, not grammatical exile.
Second, just because a Brit becomes a US citizen doesn’t mean he can’t appear on television and totally alienate the whole country if not his family and friends if he wants to.
I’ve never been to England (I will confess that the snobby Brit is right in that I am one of those Americans who have no passport), but I thank God for the knowledge that 99% of Brits are not like that fellow (everybody like Jo Frost on Supernanny makes up for those like him any day).
Britain gave us Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Hammer Films. Britain gave us a monarch any country can admire (she’s still at it and going strong). They gave us Dr. Who and Monty Python, Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” (note that I got the apostrophe right) and another definition of the word “bangers.” What’s right about Britain far eclipses anything wrong.
So I won’t go off on these matters any longer. Pass the clotted cream.
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