Random Notes from a Crank

One of the highlights of Stormy Daniels' appearance on SNL was her jab at Moscow Don's idiotic denial of climate change: "Stormy Daniels Calls Out Trump..."

As someone who cares about the written word/grammar, the amount of apostrophe abuse out in the good old U.S.A. continues to astound me. People use apostrophes to signify pluralization and often use them when they are not needed (such as the 80's when 80s makes much more sense). This is something that's addressed in grade school, people. Wake up. 

As another example, the other day I received an email addressed to "Coach's" when what it should have been obviously is "Coaches." 

There's a defunct blog that used to chronicle such instances: Apostrophe Abuse.

And there's another defunct blog that was also good: The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks.

As a grammatical snooty person (Yes, I will silently judge you.), I may have to take up the charge left by these blogs and chronicle such grammatical gaffes. 

In other news, it appears China seems to be girding its loins to quit importing soybeans from the US: "China Cutting US Soybean Purchases." As the AP article relates, "Roughly 60 percent of U.S. soybeans are shipped to China." The three states of Iowa, Indiana, and Nebraska (three of the top five soybean producers) voted for Moscow Don. We'll see if that changes if China's spurning of US soybeans becomes a political reality. 

Random Notes from a Crank

One of the dangers of having a subscription to The New Yorker is the magazine's "Briefly Noted" feature, which introduces people to recently published books. One issue sucked me into buying The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman, and now I'm considering other books that the feature introduced me to: Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America and Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-first.  

I've been a subscriber to Utne magazine since high school. The spring issue features a number of great articles. Here are three of them:

• "Bee-ware of Neonics" by Nicole Rivard. Considering how our food supply relies on bees and other pollinators, there either needs to be a ban or a multi-year moratorium on these pesticides. 
• "Building with Culture in Mind" by Fernando Pages Ruiz. Home builders are adjusting their plans according to cultural preferences that are not cookie-cutter. 
• "Will Racism Ever End, Will I Ever Stop Being a Nigger?" Just read it.

If you're interested in words that have grammatical versatility, check out "In Which We Get to the Bottom of Some Crazy-Ass Language."