Spain is not the most consumerist of countries,
which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. What it does mean is that
the national and regional governments keep a tight grip on shop
opening hours. Things have traditionally been rather more lax in
tourist areas - and the Chinese operators always seem to have been
able to open pretty much when they like - but the requirements of
domestic shoppers have carried less weight. Somebody, though,
has realised that this might just be restraining business and
economic growth. So, another 14 cities have now been given their
freedom - including San Sebastián, Marbella, A Coruña, Oviedo,
Santander, Gijón, Almería, León, Jerez de la Frontera and
Salamanca. But not Pontevedra, I note. I hope it doesn't all go to
their heads.
Deaths on Spanish roads have fallen from 6,000 a
year in 2000 to 1,680 in 2013. An amazing achievement, doubtless reflecting
the investment in new roads, inter alia.
Talking of transport . . . On my recent drive from
León to Pontevedra, I caught sight of AVE high-speed train works up
in the mountains. Which is good news but I no longer believe my own
worst-case forecast of 2020 for completion of the line from Madrid to Galicia.
The chap who replaced my roof tiles last week is
one of life's optimists. Having taken his cash, he asked me to
recommend him to others and gave me a card. Or so I thought. In fact
there were 12 of them. He must think I have a lot of friends.
Finally . . . There are some who feel we can do
without the apostrophe, especially as it's so abused by some. Here's
an article from The Times arguing for its retention:
Mark of Favour
Linguists suggest that the apostrophe has a
saviour in modern software programs
George Bernard Shaw was a fervent believer in
the reform of English spelling and punctuation. He wrote in a letter
to The Times in 1906 of “the comeliness of a page on which there
are no apostrophes or inverted commas”, and he put this belief into
practice by omitting the apostrophe from early editions of his works.
Yet eventually he had to relent as actors stumbled over whether to
say “we’d” or “wed”, or “I’ll” and “ill”.
These days the committed
apostrophe-abolitionist has a different problem. You cant, er can’t,
do it, because software programs wont, er won’t, let you. Hence
Alexander Bergs, a linguist at the University of Osnabrück, argues
that the “autocorrect” function in modern technology is a
long-term preservative for the apostrophe.
If so, this should be great news for the
self-declared advocates of a zero-tolerance approach to punctuation,
who worry about declining standards of literacy. Yet, while The Times
believes that the English language has the brightest of futures, we
fear that there is no technological fix to the puzzled punctuator’s
predicament. English orthography isn’t logical or consistent enough
to be encapsulated in a software program.
Users of tablet computers often find that their
“its” is changed to “it’s”, for example, even when they
don’t want an apostrophe. That’s irksome but unsurprising. It’s
hard enough for human learners of English to grasp the conventions
that the apostrophe marks possession in nouns but not in pronouns or
in the possessive adjective “its”.<
The apostrophe entered the language (from
French) only in the 16th century, and the conventions for its use
were still quite loose as late as the 19th century. It exists only in
written English; spoken English lacks it yet remains intelligible.
Perhaps one day the apostrophe will be rationalised away completely.
Shaws spirit would approve.
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