There are two language-related things that entertain me greatly: the creative application of apostrophes, and amibiguity.  I am aware that these two things are probably not the most exciting or daredevil of hobbies (although some of the misapostrophication out there is gasp-inducing in a manner not unlike that of watching a car spin out of control), but they keep me out of mischief and give me an excuse to read all the dodgy sections of the newspaper whilst on the hunt for amusing headlines.

My awareness of the standard applications of the apostrophe hasn’t really had too much of an impact upon my work, but after deleting something close to a couple of dozen that wases from my novel today, I realised that my linguist’s brain is overriding my writer’s brain much in the manner of a gingernut biscuit tainting everything in the biscuit tin.  It’s the progressive aspect and the participle (and the rather obscene way it tends to dangle) that are the problem, particularly given my penchant for ridiculously long sentences and my oft-admitted fear of the full-stop, a piece of punctuation that’s something like a speed hump in the middle of the freeway.

So, in an effort to snuff out any potential ambiguity, that was has sneakily invaded my work.  The result is unambiguous prose that unfortunately reads about as easily as cold porridge.  Reading over many of these sentences today, I figured that it’s highly unlikely that anyone bar me would even notice the potential ambiguity, thanks to useful stuff like deixis and anaphora.  As a result, I’ve decided not to use that was as a prophylactic against ambiguity, but to instead delete and strike from the record any occurrence of it.  Medical professionals might disagree with this approach, but as silent killers go, a potential ambiguity that might go unnoticed for years isn’t too bad, is it?