Pedants' Corner

(Or pedant's corner, if I am alone in this.)

I think most New Zealanders must have spent English classes at school staring out the window at the beautiful countryside. This place is a grammar purist's hell!

I thought Britain was getting bad at apostrophes, but we're swots in comparison. A fair number of Brits seem to get apostrophe diarrhoea, chucking extra ones in just in case. But there definitely aren't as many missing apostrophes as there are here. Vouchers on the back of supermarket receipts: "The worlds best deals!". On a glossy public information leaflet for Marlborough Sounds: "Picton. Sound like a paradise? Thats because it is!". Aaargh.

Maybe it's because of all the geographical features named after early European pioneers, which all seem to have lost their apostrophes of possession, e.g. Smithys Creek, Bullers River, Gillespies Beach - government signs setting the nation a bad example. Tsk.

Of course there are still those who have eaten a dodgy apostrophe kebab. "Bernard's Bucket's"? He got one of them right, why not the other? Unless I was missing the part of the sign which said "great, but it's not for sale".

Pointlessly capitalised words seem to be in vogue as well. WHY??? Even the authorities are at it. Among a number of odd roadside messages (e.g. "There's no place for JAFAs round here" - bit harsh on the infertile?) are some puzzling capitals:

45% of accidents happen on Corners
19% of accidents involve Trucks

BUT WHY? Do they think that if they didn't capitalise those final words, drivers wouldn't bother with the last word, and would be left forever wondering where 45% of accidents happen? At least until, completely distracted by the obscurity of some of the messages, they pile headlong into a nearby Tree.

It's good to see though that I'm not alone in this quest... Me and the vandals, united against grammar crime.