BEACHCOMBER

101 YEARS OLD AND STILL AS APOSTROPHIC AS EVER...

IWAS rudely awoken at the crack of noon yesterday by a hammering on my door and a voice shouting: “That wretched woman! Why have you let her do this?”

I glanced through the window at my unexpected visitor and was astonished to see that it was none other than my old friend the Apostropher Royal, Sir D’Arcy O’M’Darlin’, himself.

“Come in,” I said and ushered him quickly into the building as some of the serfs on the estate had begun to look concerned at his ranting. “Now what seems to be the problem?”

“It doesn’t seem,” he said. “It is a problem. That wretched Ampersandra has completely taken you in.”

As anyone who read yesterday’s column will know, the Ombudswoman for Prepositions and Sundry Parts of Speech, Lady Ampersandra Notwithstanding has proposed the introduction of a Conjunction Charge to finance her department’s research into the order of words joined by “and” or “or” in common expressions.

There has been a decades long feud between Sir D’Arcy and her ladyship, however, dating back to a dispute over responsibility for question marks, so it was little surprise to me that the Apostropher Royal was protesting. I asked him to calm down and tell me what his objection was.

“It’s all a ruse,” he said. “You should never have been taken in. She’s trying to draw attention away from her own incompetence by claiming credit for the established order of the nouns and names in expressions such as fish and chips and Romeo and Juliet.”

I must confess that I was bemused. My gast, you might say, was flabbered. “But what are her motives? And what does it have to do with you?” I asked.

“Don’t you see?” he said. “It’s all part of her incessant attempt to encroach into my territory. As Ombudswoman for Conjunctions, she is responsible for every ‘and’, but if that ‘and’ is abbreviated to ‘n’, using two apostrophes of omission for the first and last letters, it becomes my responsibility by virtue of the apostrophes outnumbering the letters.

“Her proposed Conjunction Charge will drive more people into using ‘n’, beyond the roll ’n’ rock and chips ’n’ fish brigades who already do so.”

“I think you mean rock ’n’ roll and fish ’n’ chips,” I said rather unwisely.

“I mean what I say,” he shouted. “Her proposal is nonsense-and-stuff. Any Dick, Harry or Tom can see that.”

“I still don’t see the reason for your anger,” I said.

“It’ll cause a national apostrophe blight,” he said. “She’s behaving as though apostrophes grow on trees. She’ll be getting the extra money while I’m left having to provide apostrophes two at a time to anyone wanting to change an ‘and’ to ‘n’.”

I paused to take in what he had said. “I’m sorry,” I apologised. “I think I was seeing things too much in black and white. Funny how black always seems to come first. Black and Tans, black and blue, even Black & Decker. Except Green & Black’s chocolate, of course, which was sold to Cadbury in 2005.”

“I blame Ampersandra,” Sir D’Arcy said, which did not surprise me at all.