A Niggling Annoyance
Yesterday, I was sending an email to an author friend of mine and happened to notice that he separates the initials in his name, bucking the current trend. I had to tell him how refreshing I found it that he is sticking to the “old ways”.
Andrew and I had more than one argument about this, he taking the modern side and me being the fuddyduddy. When it comes to grammatical pet peeves, this one ranks high on my list. Who decided a space was no longer necessary? Why is B.S. Murgatroyd the favored style these days instead of B. S. Murgatroyd ? Think about it in terms of the spelled out name—would Bobbie Sue write her name as BobbieSue? Is Jim Bob now signing his name as JimBob? I haven’t noticed Tommy Lee Jones movies billing him as TommyLee Jones, have you? (Although, I have to admit I do think of him as TommyLee—it just rolls off the tongue that way, doesn’t it?)
OK, I get it if you’re on Twitter and have to smush letters together ’cause you only have 140 characters and spaces but why do publishers do it on their book covers? Next thing you know, they’ll start dropping the periods. Oh, wait…
December 2, 2009
Posted in: Tales of a Bookseller
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