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When I am Copyeditor General ...: September 2010

Saturday

Politicians will respect homophones

I know, I abandoned this blog for a long while. This was partly due to time constraints, but also because ... I got a little tired. Bored. Jaded.

I mean, how many times can one comment on poor grammar and egregious typos before one becomes weary? Especially in this heat?

(Sighs, picks up fan, listlessly waves it in general direction of face.)

But then someone gave me a reason to come back.

Guy Glodis.

I'll be honest, I really hadn't given much thought to Guy Glodis. I was aware he was running for political office because some of my neighbors have big GLODIS signs in their yards, but otherwise I knew nothing of the man.

Today, this came in the mail.

glodis1

I may not know much about politics, but I do know a thing or two about homophones. What Guy Glodis meant to say was that he would do this to financial improvidence:



What his brochure suggests, however, is a little more like this:

Guy Glodis Reigns in Govt Spending

But wait; there's more.

On the back page of the brochure is a quote from Guy Glodis himself:



Popular opinion differs as to the correct use of the apostrophe to denote the possessive in words ending in "s"; however, the court of the Copyeditor General does not listen to popular opinion.

AP style says to "use only an apostrophe" and gives "Kansas' schools" as an example. More specific to Guy Glodis' (see what I did there?) employment goals is this helpful hint from the Mass.gov Style Guide:
Possessive
The possessive form for Massachusetts is Massachusetts'.
Copyeditor General's ruling: If Guy Glodis really wants to bring an end to governmental profligacy, he might want to start by asking someone to proof his glossy, four-color campaign materials before he sends them to the printer.

And meanwhile, he should listen to the Apostrophe Song.
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