The Grammar Grouch: Symbol cursing

All things must come to an end, my dear Portland State Clown College Bozos. Unfortunately for you, that includes this column in which I’ve tried to educate you on proper punctuation and grammatical accuracy all while poking fun at you.

All things must come to an end, my dear Portland State Clown College Bozos. Unfortunately for you, that includes this column in which I’ve tried to educate you on proper punctuation and grammatical accuracy all while poking fun at you.

Truth be told, I just couldn’t handle the awful dreck that is most of the writing that you Bozos splash across campus. It was so damn discouraging, I even had to stop copy editing because I was on the cusp of a mental breakdown. I had nightmares of abused semicolons, incorrect dash use and excessive ellipses so often that I started seeing them in the Vanguard, even if they weren’t there.

It seems fitting to leave you with a lesson on symbol cursing. It’s not a formal punctuation style, but anyone who’s used Twitter, Facebook, AIM or text messaging has cringed when their friends made even symbol cursing look moronic. OK, so the Bozos don’t see this happen, but they’re about as observant as a box of rocks.

First, use the same number of characters as the actual word has, and it’s OK to lead with the first real letter and end with ‘ing’ or ‘s’ where appropriate. Second, vary up the characters for emphasis (“you dumb s###” just looks lazy). Finally, limit your symbols to those found on most keyboards, because if you have the time to alt type or insert symbols in Word, you need to get a hobby.

Now, I’ll show you how it’s done and bid you farewell at the same time. Best of luck, Bozos.

“Holy f*<!ing s#!^, I wouldn’t believe how g&%%@</ stupid these Bozos are if I hadn’t seen it myself! These moronic a$$#&+”s make me want to leap from a f*<!ing bridge! F*<! all this bull$#!^, I quit!”