Public of Hairs

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the typos. I am about to go public with one that was just a hair off, resulting in plenty of pub.

Image originally posted to Twitter by Evan Smith of The Texas Tribune

My friend Chas, of the It’s Filmed There website, e-mailed me a link to a Yahoo! News story a year ago. I opened the link immediately, and by that time the story already had more than 3,500 comments. That’s understandable. This is comic gold. So, without further ado, let the commencement-program jokes commence:

• This must be a private matter, because it sure as heck isn’t public.

• Waiter, there’s a hair in my commencement program!

• Did it have to be President Johnson?

• I’ve got a pubic bone to pick with you, University of Texas.

• It’s public record: Public is a wrecked word.

I can go on (Unlimited Possibilities), but I won’t. It’s time to get serious, to get to the root of the problem. A hair is out of place. Actually, a letter has been misplaced. An L has been plucked from the nether regions of a certain word. Public, it turns out, is losing hair; the word has a bald spot. Yikes.

Someone aired a hairy error. Yes, “public affairs” sounds a bit like “pubic hairs.” So, are we splitting hairs? No. Not when the bad hair day occurs on the cover of a commencement program at Texas’ flagship university, in the pubic public eye.

We all err from time to time, and this hair folly is nothing more than follicle fallibility. Still, it’s not every day an L falling out results in such humorous fallout. The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, a graduate school at the University of Texas, may need a top-notch PR firm to handle this hair-raising situation. PR is short for public relations, not, well, you know.

It's About Capitalization

I spy, with my little eye, a little i.

Why?

Go big or go home.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Earlier this year, a friend of a friend spotted this sign and posted it on his Facebook page. I’m appropriating it and giving it my own spin, appropriately. Consider it recycling.

If you read my “Clearing the Air” post last month, you know that I’m a member of the EPA*. My task today is to ban the use of some non-certified material. This hazardous waste, which has been haphazardly placed, will be disposed of responsibly. I won’t allow the debris to find its way to a landfill. I’m promoting efficiency and protecting quality. It’s better for this sign. It’s better for the environment.

Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) is a community college in the San Fernando Valley. Some famous folks who have attended include actor Bryan Cranston, singer Micky Dolenz (The Monkees) and Magnum, P.I. himself, Tom Selleck, who played on the LAVC basketball team. Go Monarchs!

OK, enough background about this two-year public college that offers more than 140 associate degree programs and certificate programs. We have more pressing matters.

In its haste to get the sign printed, LAVC made waste. LAVC’s old college try fell short, and it’s my duty, ecologically and editorially, to reduce waste.

I’ll begin my work in the upper left, at the green Building. That big B needs to be demolished and replaced with a wee b. Much better.

Hop in my truck. We’re heading two doors down from the other building on campus. I’m going to instruct the contractor to lose the contraction. It’s? It has an extra component, making it incompetent. It’s better off being its true self, which is its. The apostrophe does not belong in this environment. I’ll dispose of it, leaving us with a possessive pronoun. Consider that my commitment to the environment — and to proper grammar.

The familiar environmental mantra is “reduce, reuse, recycle.” I put an EPA* spin on it today, opting to read, remove and replace a couple of “demolition dirty” elements on this sign. Rejoice!

* Editorial Protection Agency