Mine the Bird Wins Kentucky Derby, Saves the English Language
I am an English Major. This is fact I rarely broadcast here, because I feel it is unnecessary. After all, I didn't become a writer because I majored in English, I majored in English because I wanted to become a writer. Besides, it's not like you need to degree to write, much less write on the Internet.
While there are some English Majors who get hackles the instant they see a single deviation from standard English grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., I am not one of them. This is mostly because I don't have the internal radar to catch most grafts. It takes an error so massive that I catch it, and cannot ignore it. One such instant happened when I watched the Kentucky Derby and saw there was a horse named Pioneerof [sic] the Nile.
I should have been able to ignore the name, but for some reason I just couldn't. It just kept staring at me, mocking me and daring me to take a red pen to the screen and mark in the space. I kept hoping against hope that it was some monumental typo by NBC, and any moment now the broadcast was going to be interrupted for them to deliver an apology.
Now I realize that race horses are supposed to have weird yet distinctive name, but that gives them no right to delete a single space to create a unique name. Especially considering which space they did delete.
I wouldn't bat an eye if the name was PioneeroftheNile. I could even learn to live with Pioneer ofthe Nile, or maybe Pioneer of theNile, if I was feeling generous. But Pioneerof violates every principle of English I know through education, experience and instinct.
The name offended me so much, that I fervently hoped the horse would lose. I couldn't stand the thought of seeing Pioneerof in the newspaper headlines. Not only would it fatally shock bigger grammar sticklers then I, but it would cause the masses to think that it was okay to omit a space between "pioneer" and "of."
Who knows what sort of damage that could lead to? People could start omitting the space between any word and "of." Then they might start wondering why they bother to put a space after "of." Pretty soon people will just stop using spaces altogether and sentences will become massive strings of text.
Fortunately, Pioneerof the Nile lost to a 50-1 horse named Mine That Bird, thus saving the English language and earning somebody a boatload of cash. Hopefully that somebody was a stickler.
While there are some English Majors who get hackles the instant they see a single deviation from standard English grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., I am not one of them. This is mostly because I don't have the internal radar to catch most grafts. It takes an error so massive that I catch it, and cannot ignore it. One such instant happened when I watched the Kentucky Derby and saw there was a horse named Pioneerof [sic] the Nile.
I should have been able to ignore the name, but for some reason I just couldn't. It just kept staring at me, mocking me and daring me to take a red pen to the screen and mark in the space. I kept hoping against hope that it was some monumental typo by NBC, and any moment now the broadcast was going to be interrupted for them to deliver an apology.
Now I realize that race horses are supposed to have weird yet distinctive name, but that gives them no right to delete a single space to create a unique name. Especially considering which space they did delete.
I wouldn't bat an eye if the name was PioneeroftheNile. I could even learn to live with Pioneer ofthe Nile, or maybe Pioneer of theNile, if I was feeling generous. But Pioneerof violates every principle of English I know through education, experience and instinct.
The name offended me so much, that I fervently hoped the horse would lose. I couldn't stand the thought of seeing Pioneerof in the newspaper headlines. Not only would it fatally shock bigger grammar sticklers then I, but it would cause the masses to think that it was okay to omit a space between "pioneer" and "of."
Who knows what sort of damage that could lead to? People could start omitting the space between any word and "of." Then they might start wondering why they bother to put a space after "of." Pretty soon people will just stop using spaces altogether and sentences will become massive strings of text.
Fortunately, Pioneerof the Nile lost to a 50-1 horse named Mine That Bird, thus saving the English language and earning somebody a boatload of cash. Hopefully that somebody was a stickler.