The Word Police

by Beth Levine



It's Sunday night and the smell of Chinese food hangs low over the city. Two figures are poised outside of a neon-lit overpriced specialty food store.
     "Look, Joe, here's another one: 'Gormet Pastries,'" Lisa observes.
     "Don't these people have any respect for the law? Let's take him in," Joe sighs, exasperated.
     Joe pulls down on his snap brim hat. He and Lisa (and that's Lisa; not Leesa, Lysa, or Lise), a woman with determinedly clicking high heels, enter the aforementioned "Gormet Pastries."
     The owner, a member of the I-Dress-Only-In-Black-And-Not-Because-It's-Slimming tribe, eyes them disdainfully. "Can I help you?" he asks faintly.
     "Are you the proprietor of . . . Gourmet Pastries?" Lisa inquires, annoyed. This jerk can't spell and he's looking down on her?
     "Yes. Is there a problem?"
     The couple looks at each other meaningfully before whipping out their pocket-sized New Webster's Dictionaries.
     "Word police," Joe says with a penetrating stare. The owner turns pale, and his eyes start to dart around the store. Joe points to the back of the sign and sure enough, there is GORMET in all its purple shame. The owner pales. "I . . . uh . . . guess I never noticed," he stammers.
     "No, you people never do!" Joe exclaims. "Don't you ever proof things before shelling out your money? Day after day, you come in here and you never noticed a sign three feet high?"
     Lisa puts her hand on him. "Easy, Joe," she says quietly. Turning to the owner, she asks, "What's your name, buddy?"
     "Lonnee. L O N N . . ." He stops when he sees Joe and Lisa's faces turn pale. They are looking at a sign behind the counter that reads Baking Done on Premise.
     "What is that?" Joe asks curtly. "You bake with the hope that it might come out right?" Lonnee looks confused, as Joe begins to tie two copies of The Chicago Manual of Style to Lonnee's wrists. The three begin to shuffle to the door, while Lisa reads him his rights.
     "You have the right to remain silent--something we prefer, actually. You have the right to remain literate. In the absence of this ability, you have the right to an English professor, which the court will provide."
     Lonnee raises his head in defiance. "Ha! I just catered an affair for Edwin Newman; he'll defend me! He owes me!"
     "I don't think so. The man has principles--and that's ples not pals," snaps Joe. He sadly shakes his head and looks at Lisa. "Pathetic, isn't it?"
     As they pass, the customers of the soon-to-be-named Gourmet Pastries watch in open-mouthed horror. "He seemed to pay such attention to details. Who knew?" says one.
     A mother looks down at her ashen-faced 10-year-old son. "See, sonny? He probably cheated his way through spelling class, too. Thought he could get away with it. See? It always catches up to you." The boy burst into tears. (When he grows up, he will produce an Academy Award-winning documentary on his experiences, "Scared Grammatical.")
     Later, Joe and Lisa emerge from the New York Public Library as the former owner of Gormet Pastries is bundled off into a library bus.
     "What a dope," says Joe. "I'm glad they threw the book at him, not that he could read it. Imagine--dragging Edwin Newman's name into it!"
     "Let's go get a cup of coffee," says Lisa. She takes Joe's arm, and they proceed to Bagels 'N Stuff. Joe balks when he sees the sign.
     Lisa reassures him, "Well, it's a little cutesy, but I think colloquially it's correct." Joe stares at her intently as they enter the restaurant.
     Ten minutes later, the two are relaxing in a booth.
     "How'd you get into this crazy business, Joe?" Lisa asks meditatively.
     "I started as a copy editor at a book publisher. I loved the job, but then to save money, the publisher . . . " Lisa leans over and pats his hand. Joe bravely continues, "The publisher started allowing books to go to press with Britishisms intact so they wouldn't have to spend money to reset type. Colour instead of color, that sort of thing. I said no. This far I will bend and no further.
     "Turns out my boss used to work for McDonald's and was the one responsible for 'Over 5 billion sold,' not even knowing it should be 'More than 5 billion.' He was that sloppy. So he fired me! That's when I realized my true vocation: Cleaning up this ungrammatical city of ours."
     Lisa sighs. "Sometimes I wonder if it really does matter."
     Joe spills his coffee. "What? How can you possibly say that?"
     "Oh, more than, over. Gourmet with or without a u, does it really amount to," she pauses before uttering the cliché, "a hill of beans?"
     Now it's Joe's turn to reach for her hand. Don't burn out on me now, baby. It happens to others, but not to us. It's in our blood."
     Lisa's eyes well up. "I can't take it anymore. Everywhere I go--the bank, the sandwich shops, dry cleaners--there are typos everywhere. I went to buy a co-op, but when I saw the awning said 'Two Fourty,' I couldn't do it. I have no friends, because I'm always correcting them. Countermen hate me , because I'm forever pointing out that it's iced tea, not ice tea. And don't even talk to me about apostrophes; they show up everywhere but where they are supposed to. Joe," Lisa's tears spill out, "I want to be like other people. I want to be sloppy."
     Joe takes his hand away. "But we can't be like other people. We're a breed. The Word Police. If we slip, it's the end of the civilized world, the demise of the society of Safire and Newman and Webster. It means the Lonnees and McDonald's of the world win."
     Restlessly, Joe taps the end of his pencil on the tabletop. "Language defines what we can think," he continues. "I believe undisciplined, careless writing makes for undisciplined, careless thinking. How can you formulate ideas without appropriate tools--clarity, attention to detail? Without them, the world's thinking becomes muddled and uninformed. The mind is a muscle. Use it or lose it."
     "We could go away, Joe," Lisa says plaintively through her sobs. "We could go to France. We don't speak French, so we'd never know when something was incorrect."
     "Sorry, Lisa, I can't turn my back on murderers of the mother tongue. I need the facts, ma'am." Joe gives Lisa a despairing look, and then throws a dollar on the table. Coat collar up, hat brim pulled down, he sadly leaves Lisa and Bagels 'N Stuff behind, but not before pointing out to the amazed proprietor that decaffeinated has two Fs in it.
     "I'll let you off with a warning this time," he says, exiting to chase a passing exterminator's truck with MICES, TERMITES AND ROACHES written on the side.
     Back at the table, Lisa watches him go and says softly to herself, "I'll miss ya, Joe. Paris would of been swell." She shudders after mouthing the foul words of her new world. Picking up her decafeinated coffee, she drinks the bitter cup.