From the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" Department London Division-
He has been called a vandal, a graffiti artist and a pedant.
Even his admirers admit he is "a bit of an old codger". But Stefan Gatward – accountant, former private in the Gordon Highlanders and now Anglican day chaplain – remains unrepentant.
Known as The Apostrophe Man of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Mr Gatward shot to fame last week after taking the law (or at least a bylaw) into his own hands by adding a missing apostrophe to the street signs on his road.
St Johns Close became St John's Close and overnight Mr Gatward gained respect and derision in equal measure. While many of his neighbours congratulated him on his stand, the apostrophe was scratched off three days later.
Fearful of an appearance at a magistrate's court – or should that be magistrates' court? – Mr Gatward decided not to paint in the apostrophe again.
However, determined to halt the slide of the Queen's English into what he regards as a babel of Americanisms and street slang, he has instead embarked on a tour of the spa town in order to point out the grammatical howlers which besmirch its street signs.
After all, service in one of Britain's finest regiments and a career balancing books and ledgers have taught him a thing or two about accuracy, order and clarity and it is a lesson he remains determined to share with the rest of us.
"It's the cavalier attitude to language I can't abide," he said as we set off.
Within a half-square mile radius of his home Mr Gatward spotted half a dozen misplaced or missing apostrophes.
Stephen's Road appeared correctly in a pre-Second World War sign while in the modern sign on the opposite side of the street the apostrophe had been omitted to read Stephens Road.
More here-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6072271/Apostrophe-warrior-Stefan-Gatwards-mission-to-correct-our-wayward-grammar.html
4 comments:
Ironically, the Telegraph article uses “it’s” in a place where “its” is required. Sigh!
Stefan Gatward deserves our full support in his noble crusade against bad English!
Does anybody have his email address? I'd very much like to hear his opinion on the use of dashes in web addresses:-
http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/aug/friendly_url_should_not_use_dashes_to_represent_spaces
Where does yunz find dem? Dis guy ain't got to much time on hiz hands, do he?
I am amused when I encounter apostrophes where none are needed, e.g. "Proposal gets OK's from agencies" and misplaced apostrophes, e.g., and inviation to the Weir's house. Even more amusing are the instances when someone gets it right in one place and wrong in another.
In spoken American English the misuse of lay instead of lie is so common that I expect lie to become limited in meaning to telling a falsehood within a decade, not only in spoken English in this country, but in written as well. I once asked a young man to read a passage from Scripture which described Peter's mother-in-law as "lying in bed...." He read it as "laying."
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