What's wrong with this, seen on a sign at a baseball game? "Put me in coach."
Nothing | 3 (5%) |
Word choice | 3 (5%) |
Punctuation | 46 (79%) |
More than one of these | 6 (10%) |
I laughed when I saw this sign, so "Nothing" is definitely wrong.
Consider "Put me in coach" and "Put me in first class." Without the comma, the sentence seems to refer to airplane seating.
Yes, you guessed it: A comma is missing, because the sign writer was addressing the baseball coach and requesting to be put into the game.
"Put me in, coach" is correct. Here's another example of this comma, called a comma of address:
"Give me a dollar, coach."
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2 comments:
Hi, it is perhaps too elementary, but I wanted to know why the c of the coach here is not capitalized in that mid-sentence position. I mean, why it is not OK to transcribe it as "Put me in, Coach."
By the way, isn't this phrase from the song, "Centerfield"?
I think coach is just a generic job title, but how is it different from Mom or Dad here? In the dugout, would a player say, "Excuse me, skipper" or "Excuse me, Skipper," when he wants to talk to him?
Thanks.
You're right, Anon. The original sign was all caps, so I forgot about that part. Good catch!
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