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Pedants' corner

Was I unreasonable?

7 replies

viques · 19/03/2024 09:15

Yesterday I went to the Yoko Ono retrospective at the Tate, I enjoyed the exhibition and came away with a greater appreciation of her creativity, humour and status as an artist - but that’s for another thread.

She was/is primarily a performance artist so some of the works are interactive, you can for example hammer a nail into a board, draw around your shadow or write a note about your mum. One of the final rooms invites you to use blue or white pens to graffiti what was originally a room painted white and a white painted wooden boat. Thousands of people have contributed and it is now a mostly* blue room, covered with names, comments, drawings, slogans and a little starfish if you can find it.

Here comes the question. Was I unreasonable to add an apostrophe to a contribution which initially read ‘Come on lets go.’?


  • *only to head height, they don’t provide ladders.
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Momstermunch · 19/03/2024 09:27

Depends if there was a chance the person who wrote it saw you correcting their graffiti. I'd feel a bit shit and humiliated if I saw someone doing that to something I'd written in that context. If it was empty then I don't suppose it matters. Although it doesn't feel very in the spirit of artistic expression either...

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LightSwerve · 19/03/2024 09:31

It is contrary to the spirit of the piece and a bit depressing really.

The issue I have with pedantry is how small-minded it is, and I think this sums it up well.

You could have used your time to contribute positively instead.

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upinaballoon · 21/03/2024 12:34

Come on lets go.

I think a comma after 'on', as well as an apostrophe between the 't' and 's', would have constituted two positive contributions.

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GoosieLucie · 21/03/2024 12:38

I don't see that as being at all unreasonable. I would have done it!

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pigsDOfly · 23/03/2024 15:45

Of course you were unreasonable.

As annoying as the lack of a correctly placed apostrophe can be, the whole point of the instillation is that people are at liberty to write what they want.

The graffiti is the contribution made by the person writing it, it's not your place to come along afterwards and correct it.

It makes you come across as petty and arrogant.

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pigsDOfly · 23/03/2024 15:54

I should probably have written 'the graffito is the contribution made by the person writing it', rather than the graffiti, given that this is Pedants' Corner.

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viques · 23/03/2024 15:57

LightSwerve · 19/03/2024 09:31

It is contrary to the spirit of the piece and a bit depressing really.

The issue I have with pedantry is how small-minded it is, and I think this sums it up well.

You could have used your time to contribute positively instead.

I did, I drew a starfish.

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