Farmers Weekly Review

By Nick Reiher

Rules.

If you have gotten anything out of life as an NCIS-watcher for the past 20 years, it is there must be rules to live by.

Rule #9, always carry a knife. While it works for law enforcement, there are times my Swiss Army knife has to wait in the car or at home, lest it be wrested at security points.

Rule #39: There are no coincidences. It’s hard to argue with that one.

Is it OK to break or at least bend rules? That was among the topics discussed when I was invited on the “Mary and Natalie Show” on WJOL recently.

Longtime music dude Rich Renik, who was running the board, said he and his wife differ on how long to stop for stop signs. Rich said he often tends to roll through; his wife is a stickler for stopping.

I said it reminded me of the longtime sturm und drang over that issue with my father-in-law. He grew up on country roads, and he’s always been pretty stiff on rules. So stiff that his stop is closer to a “camp.”

Even my rule-follower, first-born wife says that just doesn’t work in an urban atmosphere. I do stop, maybe not as long as my wife, or certainly my father-in-law, but I do.

Oddly, I have for a long time equated traffic laws with rules of grammar and punctuation. Don’t give me that look. There are rules, and each punctuation mark has, in most cases, a use as specific as road signs.

It would be so cool if there were a test of those punctuation marks, like we do with traffic signs on the vehicle written tests.

What’s the difference between a colon and a semi-colon, or as Mary Lancaster called it, a “winky face?” These stray from the written test formula, because there actually are several uses for each of them; sometimes together!

There are dashes, ellipses (dot dot dot) and other punctuation marks that keep us in suspense. And the dreaded apostrophes. One of the best memes I’ve seen on social media is a woman admiring an apostrophe, but saying woefully, “I just don’t know where I’d put it.”

Punctuation marks were created to make the written word more clear, to prevent the mayhem that can happen when the wrong mark is used, just like the wrong traffic sign at the wrong place.

But, as we do when talking with someone, when we too often listen to respond instead of understand, correct punctuation, and usually comprehension, goes out the window when we hurriedly type that answer in to social media. Spelling be damned, as well.

So, I chuckle when I see Facebook memes chiding the current generation and those after them for not knowing how to write cursive and operate a manual transmission, as if these are known at birth.

We didn’t teach them, in both cases because they are mostly unnecessary these days. It’s hard to find a 5-speed anymore.

And cursive? Kids are being taught on keyboards shortly after birth. What I and others of my generation learned in high school typing class is necessary for the earliest phases of learning.

Handwritten letters are a treasure, except from me. My handwriting never was very good, and more than 40 years of writing and keyboard work hasn’t helped. But I will do it if you want one.

It’s funny, and maybe telling, there are few memes pointing out the lack of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Those who do are “grammar nazis.”

Maybe people want cursive again to hide the mistakes. Or to make them look prettier.

I’ve been trying to come up with a close here that doesn’t sound so judgmental. But it’s tough, because language has been my life for most of my years.

And I appreciate the time people take to do it correctly, no matter in what form.

Nick Reiher is the editor of Farmers Weekly Review.