It seems that the current collapses of grammar and punctuation are not entirely down to the simultaneous collapse of what might plausibly be regarded as an education system. It seems that our literary forefathers have, to put it bluntly, used all the grammar and punctuation up. What we are using now is the poor quality stuff that they thought uneconomical to use.
Here is an extract from Evelyn Waugh’s “Basil Seal Rides Again”:
"None of his few clothes , he found, now buttoned comfortably and when, in that time of European scarcity, he and Angela went to New York, where such things could then still be procured by the well-informed, he bought suits and shirts and shoes by the dozen and a whole treasury of watches, tie-pins, cuff-links and chains so that on his return, having scrupulously declared them and paid full duty at the customs – a thing he had never in his life done before – he remarked of his elder brother, who, after a tediously successful diplomatic career spent in gold-lace or starched linen allowed himself in retirement (and reduced circumstances), some laxity in dress: ‘poor Tony goes about looking like a scarecrow.’"
See how he uses up the grammar and, especially, the punctuation with no regard whatever about how much he’s leaving behind for his children and his children’s children to use. I count 12 commas in that single sentence; a reckless number by anyone’s reckoning.
Will our children’s children look upon us with similar thoughts on our recklessness with oil?
I expect so.
Recent comments