Michelle Long – 7/11/06

This page was last updated on July 16, 2006.

The message board police; Michelle Long; Beaver County Times; July 11, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Watch out, Rochester, the message board police from Center Township are riding through our streets looking for proper punctuation and grammar on our message boards.”

[RWC] Anyone want to bet Ms. Long believes in group politics? One woman from Center Township writes a letter about “proper punctuation and grammar,” and in Ms. Long’s mind everyone in Center is a member of “the message board police.”

The group politics issue was the real reason I wrote this critique, but as I read the letter I found the more Ms. Long protested, the more I came to believe she really didn’t know what she had placed on the sign was not a good example of something to display outside a school.

“On June 29, Becca Heitman of Center Township was so concerned with the message ‘Schools out! Drive safe’ that she felt the need to write a letter to the paper (‘A bad grammar example’).

“First, I am not an educator at Rochester. I am a volunteer who changes the board every week. I do this if it is 100 degrees or 20 degrees below. I also graduated from Beaver Area High School more years ago than I care to count.”

[RWC] This is an example of the “I’m a victim” defense.

“Second, the box of letters that I use does not contain any apostrophes. She was correct in indicating that the word ‘schools’ is indeed plural; all three schools are housed in the one complex, and they are all out. Therefore, I guess I could say I used it in the plural tense.”

[RWC] Ms. Long should have stopped with “the box of letters that I use does not contain any apostrophes.” That would have been a good reason, though it would not explain why she didn’t write, “School is out!” unless there was not enough room on the sign or her “box of letters” didn’t have sufficient “i’s.”

When she tried the “plural tense” explanation, she had three problems. First, nouns don’t have tense, verbs do. Second, even verbs don’t have a plural tense. Verb tense relates to time. Ms. Long should have written “the plural form.” Third, Ms. Long went from defending a sentence (“School is out!”) to defending a sentence fragment (“Schools out!”) without a verb.

“Third, ‘drive safe’ is a statement; I used it as just that, a statement.”

[RWC] “Drive safe” may be a statement, but it’s grammatically incorrect.

“People like her should get their facts straight before they criticize. I can only assume that she has not had time to watch the news, or she would see that there are bigger issues going on in this world, other than a ‘missing apostrophe’ and a missing ‘ly.’”

[RWC] Before Ms. Long tells someone to “get their facts straight,” my comments above indicate perhaps she should retake some grade school English classes.

With all the “bigger issues going on in this world,” how did Ms. Long find the time to put up the message?

“I thought people from Center Township had much more important things to do with their time than to nit-pick. I guess I was wrong - again.”

[RWC] This letter was an example of “when you’re wrong, keep your mouth shut.”