27 August—The conservative, usually clever political cartoons (euphemized as editorial cartoons) and bilious right-wing propaganda and invariably offensive defenses of the indefensible (masquerading as editorials, syndicated columns, op-eds, and letters to the editor) in the Hearst RepublicanAmerican are usually entertaining to read even as they raise one’s hackles. Certainly the crap on the editorial page (pages on Wednesdays and Sundays) is predictably Republican rather than American, with a token Democrat, liberal, or non-conservative, non-Republican letter or op-ed stuck in every now and then just to give the editorial page (pages on Wednesdays and Sundays) a feigned appearance of journalistic integrity, if not objectivity or bipartisanship.

Among the non-political quotidian fluff in the Hearst RepublicanAmerican, then, is the syndicated “Hints from Heloise” column. Heloise and her constantly evolving band of enthusiastic volunteer contributors don’t ordinarily raise one’s hackles, to be sure, and the column is always entertaining, even if the hints aren’t particularly helpful or informative. Every now and then, though, there’s even a useful hint—usually a corollary appended by Heloise Jr. (Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse Evans) herself to a half-baked suggestion contributed by a senescent devoted reader of the column since Heloise Sr. (Heloise Bowles, who died in 1977) started writing it over six decades ago.

So what? And well you may ask. So Heloise’s enthusiastic volunteer contributors obviously believe their enthusiastic volunteer contributions are the summum bonum—the highest good—of domestic practicality and helpfulness as well as social politesse. And then some.

Yesterday, for instance, Al, an enthusiastic volunteer (who reads Heloise’s column in the San Antonio Express-News) contributed a suggestion that readers ask employees (of unspecified businesses) who don’t wear name tags what their names are. “It’s more personal and shows that you really care,” after all. But do you really care? And often employees remain anonymous by their or their employers’ preference for security reasons.

An another enthusiastic volunteer, Joyce (who “enjoys” Heloise’s column in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, in what turns out to be West Virginia), “in the grocery store, rub[s] the plastic bag between her hands, and it automatically separates the sleeve so that I can open it.” Certainly more sanitary than licking your fingers. Problem is, it doesn’t work.

And yesterday’s winning hint—a “Grammar sound off”—same from Stevie K. in Centerville, Ohio, who’s clearly impressed with himself or herself: “As a former senior technical writer/editor for a research institute, a published author, a freelance editor, an instructor of professional business and technical writing at universities and colleges, and a substitute high school English teacher,” Stevie is “appalled at the number of Americans who cannot write or speak proper English.”

Me too.

As Stevie told his or her “university students, when I see a glaring grammatical error in a promotional flyer for a bank, for example, my faith in the bank vanishes. How can I trust a bank to manage my funds if the bank can’t even catch mistakes in its correspondence? Poor grammar equates to unprofessionalism.”

Absolutely and without a doubt, how indeed?

Stevie means “equates with unprofessionlism,” of course, but you don’t quibble with a former senior technical writer/editor for a research institute, a published author, a freelance editor, an instructor of professional business and technical writing at universities and colleges, and especially a substitute high school English teacher . . .