As a Cobblestone author, I know first hand the high standard of grammar and style this publishing house expects. I figured that plowing through vast wastelands of student essays as an English teacher “taught” me all I needed to know.
Yet my editor Su Greene showed me a ton of improvements when she edited Midnight Bride. I listened and learned. Because I am a rule-rollower.
And I’m a good speller, so messing with words gets to me. There are phonics. There are rules!
So who’s Joe Bing? A fictional hero? My boyfriend? Somebody running in some election?
None of the above. While driving down an L.A. freeway recently, I noticed a job-search billboard. Jobing.com. It was so eye-catching. JOBING. You know, an ING-word like dancing. Sleeping. Eating. Only there are rules of phonics. The single B gives the O a long sound! Joe Bing.
Period.
Around here, there’s a local business named for the family. Todey. Now, in any English-speaking world, that’s phonetically an easy one: TOE-dy. But the disclaimers abound on their license plate holders, their ads, their stationery. “We’re not “TOADy” We’re Toddy.” Well, news for ya. It is TOADY. That “e” after a vowel give “o” a long sound.
Doesn’t it?
Then there’s some athlete’s name I noticed during the football stuff during our family’s fantasy football season. Tedy Bruschi. Now, that’s an easy one, too. TEEdy BROOSHee.
Only in that alternate dimension, it’s TEDDY BROOSKEE.
Better yet, there’s the recent article in our local newspaper that claimed. Social Security rolls now record 46 different spellings of the female first name McKensie. MacKenzie. et al. Forty six! As a test, my hubby and I sat down and tried to come up with some possibilities. Even between the two of us, we didn’t come close, although we did conclude that the apostrophe has now become a letter of the alphabet.
The most mysterious version was: M’kezine.
Might as well have named her Time, because…isn’t that actually a misspelling of “magazine?”
Now, I get it when SpellCheck comes up with “Pepperoni” for Pepperdine University. (I’ve done some college counseling, too.) But come on. M’kezine?
In Sunday’s Times, I read a feature about a bohemian artist and designer who runs a great boutique, Show Pony, in Los Angeles’ Echo Park. Her name is Kime Buzzelli.
Curious, I e-mailed her as to the pronunciation of her first name. Does it rhyme with, well, rhyme? Like time? Is it KYE-me? Kim? Kimmie?
She wrote back, said I could mention it today.
How do you think she says her first name?
Are there any modern-day tweaks of grammar or spelling that make you nuts ?
(BTW, it’s Kimmie.)
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