News / bbc
Rise to fame of Bristol’s ‘grammar vigilante’
A self-proclaimed ‘grammar vigilante’ who prowls Bristol’s streets under the cover of darkness is fast making a name for himself as the ‘Banksy of bad punctuation’.
Armed only with a homemade ‘apostrophiser’, the anonymous crusader has been operating for more than a decade to right grammatical wrongs on shop signs around the city.
Revealing only that he is an engineer by day and a family man, the wordsmith warrior is an unlikely superhero – admitting to the BBC that he does get extremely nervous, but remaining clear in his conviction that “it’s more of a crime to have apostrophes in the wrong place”.
is needed now More than ever
The BBC followed Bristol’s ‘grammar vigilante’ on his night time crusade:
https://www.facebook.com/pointswest/videos/1362877573769345/
“The word you are looking for is pride,” says the ‘grammar vigilante’ on seeing one of his carefully corrected signs.
And that could be the reason that he has allowed his night time exploits to be documented in ‘The Apostrophiser’ for BBC Radio Four – a programme that sparked his overnight rise to fame as the story captured imaginations of fellow punctuation pedants around the UK.
One recent mission saw him remove a rogue apostrophe from the sign at Cambridge Motors – or ‘Cambridge Motor’s – in Horfield.
The owner told the BBC he was grateful and said it is good to see people caring about punctuation.
One of the signs that ‘grated’ on the ‘grammar vigilante’:
But the signage superhero said he does not want his identity revealed due to fear of recrimination from less understanding business owners who might object to his handiwork on their signs.
Rather than painting in apostrophes, he explained that he uses sticky back plastic and the long-handled ‘apostrophiser’ enables him to place or erase punctuation even in hard to reach places – with every care taken to replicate the look of the original sign.
When asked why he does what he does, the night crusader says “it grates” when he sees incorrect punctuation and he remains strong in his intent to rid the city of “the crime” of bad grammar.
Read more: Bristol City Council vs graffiti artists
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