I was recently in Durango visiting my sister, Debbie Williams, who thought that Action Line might find the attached photo of interest. Taken at the old public library, the sign drew our attention as a curious case of a missing “R.” Given the subject matter of the sign, shouldn’t we expect the spelling to be more or less correct? Respectfully – Howard Williams, Colorado Springs.
Some might see this as yet another case of putting the “duh” in Duh-rango, but dropping an “R” is more common than we care to admit.
Maybe it starts at the first year of formal education.
How many times have you heard kindergarten pronounced as “kin-dee-garden?”
Removing R’s appears to be something endemic to our native tongue, according to some linguists.
The language website YourDictionary minces no words in explaining why some folks use the word “libary” to refer to the repository of books and knowledge.
“As mentioned before, English speakers dislike two R’s in the same word,” the site cited.
“However, we have to buck up and pronounce them all,” according to the dictionary’s dictum.
Other examples of misplaced or dropped R’s include pronouncing the second month of the year as “Feb-you-wary” or “Feb-uh-wary.”
So is calling former military personnel “vet-turns”
In general, this ranks right up there as a major error deserving corporal punishment, especially when captains of industry use it in private conversation.
You’ll hear some folks refer to “diff-ernt” levels of an organization as “hi-archy.”
It might just be that these folks? are “ig-nernt.”
Remarkably, regrettable rhetoricians add R’s to words.
How many times have you heard “sher-bert” as a reference to a frozen fruit dessert or “warsh” as the act of cleaning one’s clothing or dishes?
So let’s mind our P’s and Q’s and R’s.
In the meantime, maybe the denizens of the former public library building could saunter over to the public school administration building across the street. After all, the school district has nine R’s. Surely, it could spare one to correct the city’s sign.
And if we keep dropping R’s, the noble and venerable Friends of the Durango Library will have a bedeviling problem.
They’d become Fiends of the Durango Libary!
H H H
You know things are going to be OK when the jokes start rolling in after a disaster. Such is the case with the Animas River and the Mea Culpa Mailbag.
One local wag suggested a music festival fundraiser for our sullied waterway.
“Of course, we’d play heavy metal,” insisted the reader. “Call it Plume-a-palooza.”
For the lineup, “we could do cover tunes from Poison, Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden, with scenes from ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ between sets.”
Speaking of fundraisers, last Wednesday’s shindig at the Rochester Hotel Secret Garden featured a luscious libation called “Gold King Punch.”
It’s a shockingly orange cocktail of vodka mango lemonade with flecks of green mint and lime floating around.
“People have started to call it ‘The Sludge,’” quipped bar manager Maxwell Robinson.
If Silverton finally becomes a Superfund site, another comedian suggested the Chamber of Commerce could adopt the slogan: “We put the ‘FUN’ in Superfund.”
Email questions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. You can request anonymity if you put Sept. 24-26 on your calendar; that’s the Durango Public Library’s annual Literary Festival. There will be plenty of R’s to go around.
