RE: RE: RE: Enough Already!

Mary Katherine arrived home last night with an instruction sheet regarding costumes for an upcoming play in which she’s appearing. The sheet was full of many long paragraphs that covered both sides of the page. For an extra challenge, THE ENTIRE SET OF INSTRUCTIONS WAS WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS. It made my eyes ache just to wade through the document for important information. I tried to imagine the writer of this missive, deciding that a flow of consciousness style was the best way to communicate with parents, (they’ve got plenty of time to savor the long form, right?) and hey, while I’m at it, why not hit the ol’ CAPS LOCK AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS?

Maybe all caps are making a comeback this season, like thigh-high tights and cowl necks. I just ran across a colleague’s bio on LinkedIn.com, and the entire thing was written in capital letters. The only description missing was: STRATEGIZED AND DEPLOYED MANY LARGE LETTERS FOR A MAJOR ALL-CAPITAL INITIATIVE ON THE WEB.

Excess takes many forms when it comes to writing. I have another freelancing friend who occasionally dips her toes into the waters of Mommy Volunteering, and she finds it to be a strange land, grammatically speaking.  “What’s with the exclamation points?” she asked me one day. “It’s like, oh, if I only put six exclamation points on this email about the Valentine’s Day Class Party, no one will open it, but seven points will have them clamoring for more.”

“Also,” I said, “Re Re.” 

“What?” she was baffled.

“You know, the complete inability to change the subject line, so every message appears with RE: RE: RE: RE: at the start.”

“While we’re at it,” she chimed in, “there’s “Reply All,” too.”

She’d hit a nerve. The bigger the committee I’m working on, the more likely the Mommies are to hit “Reply All” to a message that really ought to go to the chairperson (or to no one at all). Really, I didn’t need to know that about how that ovary problem will keep you from making the Saturday morning meeting at the coffee shop, but all 50 of us on the committee are happy to know now.

The two-page, ALL CAPS missive has its own evil twin, I believe, and that’s the outline. I hate outlines. I remember a time I was volunteering on a charter school startup project. One of the people on the committee was a big-time lawyer, or, as he would say, attorney. Everything this guy wrote, and perhaps thought, was crammed into an outline --  a serious one, with four levels down reading A) iii) b) iv).  I had been asked to create some marketing materials for the school, and I saw his look of utter distaste for my black and white photos of needy kids and short, punchy headlines. How can anything be worth reading if it doesn’t have a subparagraph c, section ii? Even though I prefer the pithy to the rambling, we were not destined to be friends, Mr. Outline and I. It’s the Roman numerals that kept us apart, I think.

I have a pal who jokes that no matter what work-related problem she shares with me, I diagnose that a PowerPoint presentation will fix her up in a jiff. I do admit to a deep and abiding love for bullet points, but it’s not as if I harbor a a secret desire to convert all of Shakespeare to bullet points or anything crazy like it.  Or do I?

·         To be
·         Not to be
·         Question? 

Or, as the mommies would say, Question?????????????

Your Welcome: The Grammar Vandal Strikes Southwest High

Yes, officer, I did deface that poster in the halls of my daughter’s high school. But no jury in the world, as least one that knew the difference between possessives and contractions, would ever convict me.

Here’s what happened: Mary Katherine and I were killing time at intermission during a play. We saw a lovely four-color poster for National Coming Out Day (October 11! It just seems to come earlier every year. And I haven’t even wrapped my National Coming Out Gifts, or finished hanging the festive National Coming Out Day garlands!)

The poster encouraged everyone to celebrate that day by wearing a “name badge that identifies you’re orientation.”

Of course you can’t blame me for whipping out a ballpoint and changing the “you’re” to “your.” And yes, I did add just a teeny bit of editorial comment: “Good grammar is appropriate for all orientations.” Golly, that will learn ‘em.

Mary Katherine, by the way, thought all of this was great. It reminded me of one of her favorite games when she was small, which she invented and named, “Playing Hurdmans.” She’d loved the play, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” and she was especially taken with the smoking, cursing, bullying delinquents of the piece, the Hurdmans. We’d finish Sunday breakfast and she’d beg, “Let’s Play Hurdmans.” The game involved her acting out crimes – setting fire to the cat was a popular one, as I recall – and me reacting with shock and horror. Even then, this girl knew that villains get the best parts.

So there we were in the hallway, me feeling like a cross between a pinch-faced librarian and Zorro, her laughing and egging me on. The minute I’d finished with my egregious act of vandalism, she turned to me, eyes shining. “Let’s deface something else before Act Two!” she urged, grinning wickedly. Turns out her orientation has been a closeted poster-defacer all these years, and it took this one bold move for her to come out.