Sir – I moved to Oxford last summer. Preparing myself for a life of urbane high culture, and witty and stimulating social enlightenment, imagine then my sheer, abject horror and anguish when I recently acquired my very own Oxford Yellow Pages to be confronted by, of all things . . . a redundant apostrophe.
This monstrous anti-grammatical carbuncle is, to matters worse, on the spine of the publication, in an otherwise innocuous advertisement for ChemDry dirtbusters. Its pernicious, malignant gaze follows me round the room and haunts my every waking hour with its foul and loathsome influence.
What can I do? I've contemplated Tippex, or perhaps taking the publication in question to a bookbinder.
However, I come over all feint (sic) and nauseated when I even so much approach it, and I would feel ashamed to be seen out in public in its company. How on earth have other Oxford citizens tackled this orthographical nightmare? Myself, I sit in most days with the curtains drawn and the telephone disconnected, gently rocking.
Peter Marcus, Oxford
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