The Pedants' Revolt

An old friend once told me the following joke: "Who was the leader of the Pedants' Revolt? Which Tyler."

I think this is a joke which (or should that be "that"?) separates the population into two groups: those who get it and those who don't. If you don't get it, there is no hope for you. And if you do get it, there is no hope for you either, although for a different reason.

I offer this by way of introduction only because I was reminded again recently of the importance of dull discplines such as punctuation and sentence construction, and not only for those of us who live in non-English-speaking countries. (Just a little joke.)

Before sharing with you the example which got me thinking about this, I should re-iterate (why is it that no one ever iterates for the first time?) that - as explained in my message of 23 April - this is not a political site and has no axe to grind in that direction. Oh no. Despite the apparently political nature of the following example, The Referee's interest has nothing to do with the war on terror and everything to do with the proper use of the English language.

The Referee recently stumbled across the following news headline: "Bush: Sept 11 architect to be tried".

Not a particularly remarkable headline in itself, perhaps, but I couldn't help thinking that there is quite a lot one can do with that sentence just in terms of punctuation, even if the seven words are left untouched.

For example, "Bush, Sept 11: architect to be tried", involves only a couple of minor changes - losing a comma and moving a colon - but creates quite a different headline which might have less to do with terrorism than the President's level of satisfaction with structural changes to the West Wing.

There are, of course, some rather more straightforward changes one could make along the same lines, such as "Bush, Sept 11: architect to be tried?", if it wasn't clear whether the President was satisfied with the work or not.

Or, just by adding a couple of hyphons, "Bush, Sept 11: architect-to-be tried" suggests that the root of the problem might have been that the chap in question was not yet fully qualified.

But the most fun one could have with this - and I suspect you might be ahead of me here - would be "Bush, Sept 11 architect, to be tried". In that case, only three small changes - lose the colon and add a couple of commas - are all that's required to set off a wild conspiracy theory.

If a little comma can change the course of recent history, can we afford to ignore it? I think, not.

The State of Things to Come

Back by popular demand - ie The Referee consulted himself and made a decision in the absence of any dissenting opinion - I am proud to bring you the second in the ground-breaking series, "Things I Learned from Studying My Children's Plastic, Easy-Wipe Place Mats" (see my message of 27 July, or 7/27 as they like to say here).

(You will have noted, I am sure, that the apostrophe in "children's" - ie something belonging to the children - goes before the s, and not after it, as is usually the case with plurals (eg "the boys' waistcoats"). This is, of course, because it is necessary to distinguish between "the boy's waistcoats" - a number of waistcoats belonging to the same boy - and "the boys' waistcoats" - a number of waistcoats belonging to a number of boys. "Children", however, is necessarily a plural, despite the fact that it has no s, and so there is no need to make such a distinction by putting the apostrophe after the s, and so it stays in front. Best to clear that up at the outset, I thought.)

Anyway, a big shout out (whatever that means) to the good people at Painless Learning Placemats - painlesslearning.com - for inspiring this series, the second of which might be sub-titled: "Why is it that some States are more interesting shapes than others"?

I am sure you, like me, will from time to time have spent an idle moment or two staring at a map of the USA and wondering how such different shapes and sizes could possibly have emerged. In particular, I often wonder whether those in the very boring almost-rectangular States are secretly insanely jealous of their neigho(u)rs in the State next door, which is so much more random and, well, wiggly.

Texans, for example, must be intensely proud of the splendid and unfathomable shape of their huge State, particularly the southwestern part which meanders along the Rio Grande and around the corner created by the Gulf of Mexico. And how much more pleased with themselves must Texans be when they look to the north west and see New Mexico - by all accounts a beautiful area - but which is almost entirely rectangular, except for the bit in the south west corner which looks as though the ruler of a small boy drawing a map slipped south a couple of times, and for some reason he didn't have time to erase it and start again, and so New Mexicans will forever have to put up with a funny little step in their south west corner.

And what about Kansas and Nebraska and the Dakotas (North and South)? All periously close to being depressingly rectangular, except for the saving grace of the Missouri River and Minnesota River respectively, which meander along their eastern extremities just enough to make them slightly interesting.

Now, in case you should think I am wittering on incoherently (imagine that!), I should point out that I have, in the interests of research, decided that mere subjective description of the shape of the States is insufficient. And so I have developed a highly scientific and objective method for calculating how interesting or dull the shape of a State is exactly.

Now, you are no doubt thinking, if such a method exists, surely it could be used on other countries and states anywhere in the world? Well, maybe, but let's not run before we can walk.

I have called this measurement the Geographical Interest Index (GII). The GII of a State can be measured by calculating the proportion of its borderline which is defined by rivers, coastlines or is otherwise natural and wiggly-looking, minus that proportion of its borderline which has clearly just been drawn on a map by someone with a pencil and a ruler.

Well, the results are very interesting. What a statistician might call the median State - with a score of precisely 0 - is the lovely State of Oregon up in the Pacific Northwest - which scores 0 because the percentage of interesting borderline is exactly matched by boring straight lines. (I hope you're following this.)

Just to the south, the great State of California scores a surprisingly poor -4, since its lovely coastline is more than matched by the horrible straight lines someone decided to draw inland in order to ensure that neighbo(u)ring Nevada (which scores a shocking -90) goes round a 140 degree corner.

A special mention should be made of Idaho which, despite scoring a rather modest 2, manages an attractive narrowing towards its Canadian border which serves to draw the eye away from the hopelessly square bit at the bottom.

But, without further ado, joint last place goes to Colorado and Wyoming, both of which manage the lowest-possible GII score of -100 - in other words, not one yard of the border is the slightest bit natural or wiggly - all of it is shamelessly drawn by a cartographer with something of a right-brain creativity deficit.

And, finally, congratulations to the marvellous State of Michigan, nestling as it does between the Great Lakes, which scores an unbeatable 76, thanks in large part to being defined by lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron, which are, without exception, commendably wiggly.