Cult of Jef

While vis­it­ing a friend in Jack­sonville, Florida, I wan­dered into a small book­store where the owner still used on old-fashioned cash reg­is­ter that only had keys for a penny, a nickel, and a quar­ter, and a large slot machine han­dle. He demon­strated how he rang up a sale, which was a a labo­ri­ous process that resem­bled Wi fit­ness more than a mon­e­tary calculation.

On my drive back to Atlanta, it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen a “¢” key for ages. In fact, the last time I remem­bered a “¢” key being present on a key­board was in my col­lege typ­ing class. I real­ized it didn’t bode well for “¢” key since type­writ­ers aren’t often found in the mod­ern busi­ness. When I worked for an insur­ance com­pany many years ago, we once required a type­writer to com­plete a spe­cial form. We combed all 18 floors to track down an old Smith Corona, then stared at it, as we tried to fig­ure out how to turn it on.

I sup­pose it doesn’t help that every­thing costs more these days. After all, what can you buy for a penny, any­more? Just the other day, I offered a friend’s lit­tle girl a penny for her thoughts. She informed me that due to infla­tion, her thoughts now went for a min­i­mum of a nickel.

A few months ago, I con­fused one of the younger book­sellers at the book­store by writ­ing “3¢ over” on the cash drawer log. “What does this mean?” she asked, point­ing at the “¢” sign.

“It’s a cent sym­bol,” I said.

She blinked at me.

“You know, if the amount is less than one dollar.”

“Why don’t you just write ‘$0.03′?”

“Because it requires less strokes of the pen to write ‘3¢,” I said. “Besides, I like the cent sym­bol.” She stared at me, her face blank. “It’s retro.”

“Ah …” She nod­ded her head in under­stand­ing, and then adopted the sym­bol herself.

So, I did some research to find out what sym­bol took the place of the “¢” sym­bol on the com­puter key­board. As it turns out, it’s the “^” or caret, which is Latin for “it lacks” and is used in proof­read­ing to indi­cate miss­ing punc­tu­a­tion. I can’t recall ever using the caret for any­thing, except draw­ing draw­ing a Christ­mas tree onscreen a num­ber of years back. Is the caret really more impor­tant than the cent symbol?

I dis­cussed this with Biodiesel Ed at the local farm­ers mar­ket. He, of course, blamed it on con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians. “They’re being wined and dined by the pow­er­ful and clan­des­tine proof­read­ing indus­try.” Ed leaned in close. “Their lob­by­ist has no shame.”

I stepped back and fanned the air. “What’s smell?”

“I’m recy­cling my urine into drink­ing water. I’ve almost per­fected the process. Would you like some?”

Declin­ing his offer, I stopped by the State Capi­tol to dis­cuss this with one of my legislators.

“Is it true that you’re being bought off by the proof­read­ing indus­try to replace the cent sym­bol on the key­board with the caret?” I asked.

The leg­is­la­tor chuck­led and leaned for­ward on his desk, steepling his fin­gers together, then said, “There’s no such thing as global warming.”

“Um, I didn’t ask about global warming.”

He blinked, then smiled. “Repeat after me, there’s no such thing as a global warming.”

I couldn’t decide if he was hid­ing the truth, or try­ing to avoid admit­ting that he didn’t know what a caret is. I thanked him for his time and left.

I nor­mally don’t pay atten­tion to con­spir­acy the­o­ries, espe­cially from peo­ple who recy­cle their own body waste, but I must admit that Biodiesel Ed’s sug­ges­tion is seem­ing less and less far fetched.

Great power comes with the abil­ity to tell peo­ple to insert punc­tu­a­tion any­where proof­read­ers deem to place a caret. The ques­tion is, will they use that power wisely?