Parts of speech and proper punctuation.

Now, dust off your grammar books, children. Auntie Allison needs to talk about the parts of speech.

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I swear, I'm usually an intelligent person. But I had to pause for a few minutes when I read this headline:

"City rejects drive up for Dunkin' Donuts"

I would suppose that when any of us reads a sentence, our brain not only deciphers the words, but also defines how that word fits into and adds meaning to the surrounding sentence (i.e. what part of speech the word acts as). I'm not saying its a conscious action; most words are not so ambiguous or multifunctional that our understanding of them hinges on what part of speech they are.

But that headline puzzled me more than seven words should have the power to do. My brain saw that sentence, chewed it up, and spit it out as:

City (adj.) rejects (n.) drive (v.) up (prep.) for (prep.) Dunkin' Donuts (prop. n.)

And this alarmed me. I thought, "Why does it matter where the rejects of the city are driving?" And then, "Is this, perhaps, also a judgment on Dunkin' Donuts?"

("Dunkin' Donuts... Oh, you know, the coffee place where all the rejects go...")

My eyes scanned the article quickly and realized that what the headline actually meant was:

City (n.) rejects (v.) drive-up (n.) for (prep.) Dunkin' Donuts (prop. n.)

My problem is this: The only reason my brain couldn't decipher that sentence properly is because the editor didn't know to hyphenate the word "drive-up" as it applies to a fast food chain.

What an idiot.

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Anyway, children, the moral of this story is to always use proper punctuation, or you may inadvertently slander a restaurant chain or the population of a local city.

Sigh.