I just got an email from the quality department at Amazon Kindle that a reader complained about a misspelling in Jokes By Kids: Volume 1. Ugh… I hate typos! Really. That’s why each edition of Jokes By Kids has been read by me and TWO PAID EDITORS! That’s three sets of eyes looking for typos.
So, imagine my surprise when I come to actual complaint part of the email. Here it goes:
Potential errors have been identified: for example, “on their howlidays!” should be “on their holidays!” (loc. 706).
Gee, that rung a bell. It was a joke about ghosts howling on some holiday. So I looked it up, and here’s the joke:
Why are ghosts loudest in the summer?
Because they are on their howlidays!
From Ashleigh, age 9, from Glasgow, Scotland
Now, I’m not critical of the grownup that didn’t get the joke. We’ve all been there. Right? But complaining to Amazon? I was just flabbergasted.
So, getting back to grammar, I was thinking maybe “howlidays” should have been quoted because it’s a made-up word. But I can’t seem to find a reference for this online. So, my grammar peeps. What say you? Should the punchline have been written, “Because they are on their ‘howlidays!'”
It’s unfortunate that this parent didn’t get the joke. I think it challenges everyone to think beyond grammer rules and understand the irony here that IS the joke. However, if it keeps the grammar patrol happy, by all means, use quotations to indicate a made-up word.
i know right
Hi Barb!
What Victoria said! It’s especially annoying when people who don’t know what they’re talking about “correct” you. Used to happen to me almost every day. I would have to pull out my Chicago Manual of Style and cite them chapter and verse before they’d slink away (still secretly convinced they were right).
Nitpicky additional point: American usage dictates that in this case the quote marks should come before the exclamation point. So the line as printed in the book would read,
Because they are on their “howlidays”!
A quotation of the line elsewhere (as you did above) would be punctuated, “Because they are on their ‘howlidays’!”
BTW, if you’d like yet another pair of eyes on any future projects, please let me know! I’d be happy to do it for free. I wrote and edited a variety of publications at Caltech for 15 years, as well as supervising the copyediting staff, before being “downsized” three years ago. Now I’m officially retired, but I do a bit of freelance work here and there, just to fend off brain rust and boredom. One can only garden so much 🙂
Hope all is well with you!
Cheers,
Barbara
Thanks, Barbara. Yeah, that punctuation inside or outside the quotes always gets me!
i love it lol
I love this website! It’s awesome! It is the only thing that I hardly get on.
It’s a pun!