Friday, May 3, 2013

Out walking on his tipsy toes

I'm going to step out of my usual shoes and ask my conservative friends to be conservative about something.

I've given up wondering why a judge did not see fit to confine in jail a county councilman who was driving drunk in the middle of the night down a busy street in the county seat...without his headlights on.  This person already has a past event in his life for which he wound up in the Anne Arundel County Ironbar Bed and Breakfast for a weekend after leaving the scene of an accident.  He's also faced charges of having a loaded pistol in his glove box, and for passing a bad $500 check.

A literalist from way back, I keep a pair of gloves in my glove box.

No, judges are going to do what judges are going to do,  even though sobersided individuals such as I feel that a few more days wearing an orange jumpsuit would have served both the politician involved and the public fair warnings about how seriously we regard drunks driving.  No use to fret about that.

But, conservatives, do you not feel the same irritation stirring within when you read the letters of support sent to the judge...from another politician, a civic leader and a clergyman?  Because not one of the three letters reproduced in the Towson Patch is free of grammatical errors.

True conservatives would wish that our beloved language, the native tongue of Keats, Byron and Shakespeare, be maintained and honored by proper usage among all.  Awkward syntax, "it's" being used instead of "its," and extraneous pronouns all are vexatious to lovers of the language.

I expect a groundswell movement among enraged right-wingers, to be followed by a huge upsurge in correct usage in schools, newspapers and placards waved at Tea Party rallies.

Won't YOU help?

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