Mark A. Mandel, © 2000
ttto "Witnesses' Waltz" (Leslie Fish)
This song is dedicated to William Safire, who may have seen some of my postings to the American Dialect Society's discussion list (I know his assistants have); Theodore Bernstein, also of the New York Times and "Uncle Ted" to my eighth-grade English teacher Mrs. Meyersohn; and Elizabeth Stone, who encouraged me to finish writing it.
--Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, & Philological Busybody
CHORUS [Note: last line changes each time]
Twelve thousand, half million, million and more,
Misplaced apostrophe's, commas, galore,
Spelling misteaks run-on sentences too --
You'd think we could find something better to do.
Come on, Elizabeth, William, and Ted,
Grab your green eyeshades and pencils of red.
We'll go for a walk and we'll exercise... pique
At what people do to the language they speak.
Twelve thousand, half million, million and more,
Misplaced apostrophe's, commas, galore,
Spelling misteaks run-on sentences too --
The stories you'll hear are essentially true.
The signs in the market are rather a mess,
Selling APPLE'S and PEAR'S with apostrophe-S.
And saying their flounder is quote, "FRESH", unquote
Suggests it's just two or three weeks off the boat.
Twelve thousand, half million, million and more,
Misplaced apostrophe's, commas, galore,
Spelling misteaks run-on sentences too --
It's ignorance makes them behave as they do.
Computer typesetting is ever so fine
For breaking long words that run over the line.
But here in the paper, I'm sorry to tell,
It hyphenates "moonglow" between "g" and "l".*
Twelve thousand, half million, million and more,
Misplaced apostrophe's, commas, galore,
Spelling misteaks run-on sentences too --
Computers can be mighty ignorant, too.
Next we'll drop in on a woman I know
Whose data was wrecked, a day's work at one blow.
A technical writer bears part of the blame
Who thought "substitute" and "replace" mean the same.
Twelve thousand, half million, million and more,
Misplaced apostrophe's, commas, galore,
Spelling misteaks run-on sentences too --
Let's hope it won't happen to me or to you.
Some say we're nitpickers, pedants, and worse,
That care for precision in writing's perverse.
But tell me, would you want your car's brakes repaired
From manuals not written by people who cared?
Twelve thousand, half million, million and more,
Misplaced apostrophe's, commas, galore,
Spelling misteaks run-on sentences too --
Your life could depend on the work that we do!
* New York Times, March 7, 2000, page A20, column 2, second paragraph from the bottom
last modified 2005-12-30