You all know that I hate misapplied quotes. You know, when people put
quote marks around words thinking that
it somehow emphasizes them.
"Fast" service! We have "all" brands! Now "open" on Sundays!
I
was therefore instantly annoyed when I read the following paragraph:
One Greyhound bus that comes
through the area is a southbound run,
from Seattle to Sacramento, while another, northbound run that leaves
Sacramento late at night arrives in Bend around 9 a.m., said the
ticket agent, “Ken.”
It
was on a news webpage about cuts to Greyhound service. I figured it
was one more example of sloppy punctuation in
the news media. After
all, they didn't put quotes around the quote, so it seemed quite
plausible that
they thought they belonged around the speaker's name.
But then I looked again, and realized that I might be wrong.
There is
in fact, two possible reasons why this man might be known as "Ken".
Reason number
one: He didn't want his real name used, so he chose a
pseudonym. It seems likely. "Ken" was not supposed to be commenting
on
the recent Greyhound bus decision. "Ken" was a Greyhound employee
talking completely off the cuff.
"Ken" was violating the Greyhound
ticket agent code of honor, and "Ken" knew it. So "Ken" had no choice.
"Ken"
did what he had to do. "Ken" wanted the people to know! So "Ken"
adopted a super cool, super secret name. After
all, Watergate had
Deepthroat. And now Greyhoundgate has "Ken".
Reason number two: That's
how his parents spelled his name. If you
think this is far fetched, just think of how many children there are
named Kay-Lee, M'Chelle and DuWayne. I don't think "Ken" is much of a
stretch. The only question is what "Ken" is
short for. Is it "Kenneth"
or "Ken"neth? We may never know.
(c) 2000-2005 Alexis Gentry
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