Subversion in Borders
I was in Borders this morning, looking for a copy of The Adventures of Johnny Bunko (see previous post), and doing my usual browse of the graphic novels. Just to the left of the Manga books was a slim display of books marked as a ‘Personal Study Selection’. Personal Study is what used to be the dreaded RPR in Higher English – review of personal reading – and requires the weans to read a book and write a Higher standard critical essay on it, supposedly with little teacher input, although it doesn’t always work out that way. A lot of bookshops have this kind of display, but I was impressed on first glance by this one. For a start, they had a whole shelf called ‘dystopian futures’. Fantastic. There were ‘ones by the girls’ with wonderful Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter titles among others, a nice selection in interesting classics, and a world fiction section, each with a pithy display card introducing the theme. Brilliant, I thought, this is the kind of thing they should be reading. Then I looked up……
Nice.
The selection of apparently shocking tales included American Psycho, The Piano Teacher, The Photographer of Vienna, Hunger and Swung.
You know, it probably says a lot about me as a teacher that I’m delighted by the concept, and by the choice of books, but dismayed by the missing apostrophe on the shelf card, which reads “Fictions dark and dirty side”.
I need help.
8 Comments
I’ve always felt, Katie, that we could do away with the apostrophe altogether, since in the vast majority of cases the context will tell you what you need to know – however, I have to admit that I too noticed the lack of apostrophe before I even looked at the titles
Anyway, nice to welcome you to the conversation, so to speak. For obvious reasons, anyone involved with Glow is a special person, so it will be good to follow your thinking on your blog in the coming months (and years, I hope).
John
Thanks for the welcome, John – happy to be here, and I hope I’ll have a lot to say about Glow and everything else!
You know, I think that’s a common reaction to the apostrophe problem. Intellectually we appreciate that it’s a pointless relic, but there’s the same visceral reaction when it’s missing or misused. We can probably phase that out in a few generations though
But did you find that copy of The Adventures of Johnny Bunko? Not sure it’s available yet in your part of the world.
Not in Borders
Had to go to Waterstones (another big book retailer in the UK, I’m sure you know it)and it was nestled among the careers books, waiting to go to a good home.
Good work, Mr Pink! Life affirming *and* changing stuff. Everyone I know will be getting a copy, so Waterstones had better restock!
You know, that picture from your Flickr makes much more sense when viewed along with this post. Ahem.
And yes, the missing apostrophe was the first thing I noticed too
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Yup, I noticed the missing apostrophe too.
I would also disagree that they’re pointless relics; I think that, if anything, spelling should be re-done in English to be more consistent before we bin the poor apostrophe. I mean, in German if you see an “ae” together you know exactly how it should be pronounced, which is more than can be said for English.
I do think that apostrophes increase clarity, and that’s what I like in my punctuation…
I wouldn’t even be able to spell it let alone notice it was missing
Apostrophes are part, surely, of the punctuation which makes writing clear. Several times I’ve had a pupil tell me “Oh, I put the punctuation in afterwards”, and spent some time trying to convince them that it’s a valuable tool and therefore an integral part of everything they write. I think it’s a sign of decline if educators think of phasing out items simply because some of them no longer remember their accurate use. And we have had some disastrous experiments – remember ITA, anyone?