“Get-it-right!”

“The English language is impossible!”
So said a friend in a burst of wisdom.
A couple days ago I ate out with another friend. We began discussing “Hump Day.” It was Wednesday, February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day.
A radio-host said Wednesday was “Hump Day.”
“Not this month,” said another host.
“Tomorrow, Thursday, February 14th, Valentine’s Day, is ‘Hump Day.’ Flowers for yer honey; then get humped.”
“Words have so many meanings,” my friend observed.
“Another,” she added; is ‘package’.”
Some girl picked up a “package” from a washboard abs.
Hmmmnnn.....
I have a friend who worked at a newspaper in Corning, NY. I myself worked at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper after my stroke.
A torrential exchange began: “‘E-mail:’ hyphenated or not?”
“Yes.”
“How about ‘website’?”
“No.”
“Okay, where do you put the end-quote? In front of or behind the period?”
“Ahead.”
“Maybe in Corning ya did, but not at the Messenger,” I shouted.
It’s the old waazoo: “my blog, my rules: I’ll punctuate as I please.”
“You probably also know what ‘smart-quotes’ are and ‘dumb-quotes’.” “Dumb are vertical (") both beginning and ending. ‘Smart’ slants down-right beginning (“), and down-left (”) ending.
Microsoft Word® is dumb-quotes I think, although you can probably set it for smart-quotes.
Apple’s ‘Pages’ word-processor is smart-quotes. I do all my wording in ‘Pages’ so I get smart-quotes. A copy/paste from ‘Pages’ into my e-mail program (and Facebook) transfers smart-quotes. But e-mail on its own is dumb-quotes. (As is Facebook.)”
“Who cares about this stuff?” an editor at the newspaper asked.
“The Grammar-Police,” I’d note. “The CONSERVATIVES who cleaned out the ears of our head-honcho claiming we were too “liberial.” (The kerreck Conservative spelling.)
The same blowhards who copy/pasted a direct steal from the Limbaugh website, then signed it themselves as a locally-written Letter-to-the-Editor.
“This letter is too well-written,” I told my boss. I looked it up and there it was word-for-word on the Limbaugh website. (We didn’t run it.)
“What rule-book did you use at that Corning newspaper?”
“The AP Stylebook,” she answered. (Associated Press.)
“We used that too, and I still have mine, although it’s 2000 or so, so probably outta-date.” Ten years after usage becomes common they might update.
“I wonder if they still hyphenate ‘teenager’ (‘teen-ager’)? That was our single exception, promulgated by the Messenger Publisher (the head-honcho).”
In financial circles one invests “capitAl,” and our nation’s “capitAl” is Washington DC.
But Congress sits in the “capitOl building.”
“Probably the first thing I asked our aquacise-instructor was if her name was hyphenated or two words?” (It’s two words.) I also wanted to know if it was “Ann” or “Anne? (It’s “Anne.”)
This is the Messenger jones. The main reason that newspaper never cut me loose, despite how messed up I was after my stroke, was I cared about this stuff.
I am a graduate of Houghton College (1966). As was our Executive-Editor (1980). That was Houghton’s legacy: GET-IT-RIGHT!
Any text by me is gonna be properly spelled and fully punctuated.
“You don’t need to do that,” says my hairdresser, who got me into Smartphones.
“I do too; I use voice-recognition, then fix the flubs. VR is pretty good, but may slip in an F-bomb.”
The other morning I had my classical-music radio-station on, and it said it was sponsored by a financial-service that offered “holistic financial planning.”
“What in Hell’s name is ‘holistic financial planning’?” I shouted.
Buzzwords are taking over.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• Over 13 years ago I retired from the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Best job I ever had —I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern).
• “Houghton College” (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) in western New York, is where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college, and was the first religious institution to not consider me rebellious and of-the-Devil = a threat.