Klarinet Archive - Posting 000335.txt from 2000/12

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] The Apostrophe's War
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 14:40:45 -0500

On Wed, 6 Dec 2000 09:47:06 -0800 , kevinfay@-----.com said:

> The situation does touch on the other string on dealing with
> conflicting authorities, though. Like Fowler's, most texts deplore
> the use of the excess apostrophe in this instance. The contrary
> authority for us, however, the "A Uniform System of Citation" -- the
> "Blue Book," a talisman in legal publishing. It's a volume of
> citation rules put together jointly by the editorial boards of the law
> reviews from Harvard, Columbia and a couple of other snooty schools
> whose identity escapes me. It is therefore Terribly Important
> Scholarship, which is why a little school like Buffalo going against
> the grain would be an act of apostasy, even if correct.
>
> Unfortunately, the Blue Book is also often wrong, which is why it's on
> its twentieth edition or so. I have not looked at one in at least ten
> years.
>
> What should the kid do about the plastic reeds? The simplest
> alternative has already been suggested -- use a cane reed in band.
> Most of us keep more than one reed in the case anyway. Some battles
> just are not worth fighting. You don't have to win every battle to win
> the war.

I don't understand this.

Surely the difference between the two cases is that the use or otherwise
of an apostrophe 'goes no further'. It produces its own end result.
Whereas, in the case of the reed, the proof of the pudding is in the
sound that gets produced. There's no 'authority' that says what sort of
reed you should use to produce it.

A band director is perfectly justified in requesting that his players
produce a particular musical result -- flatter if it's too sharp,
quieter if it's too loud, and so on. And he might make a suggestion of
some technical means toward those ends, if he's an expert.

But he cannot, in my view, go further and *insist* on the means.

> When I was in junior high (about the time of the last Ice Age) I had a
> band director who insisted that everyone use really hard reeds. I
> could have made a stink about it, I suppose, but it was a relatively
> easy matter to take a couple of Vandoren 5s at the time and sand them
> down so the kid....

ie, you, do you mean?

> ....could play them just fine. When the director saw the number 5 on
> the reed, he automatically gave me an A+ (I told you he wasn't very
> bright) and the reeds worked fine.

I suppose it might be the season for some of us who don't live in the US
to marvel at some aspects of your way of life. (Don't get me wrong --
I've learnt, and continue to learn, a lot from Americans.) The post I'm
thinking about at the moment touches on some of those aspects that
aren't exclusively American.

But I have to say, it's very unlikely that a junior band director here
in the UK would behave like either of those we're discussing.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... If the police arrest a mime, does he have the right to remain silent?

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