Halloween Week: Playing Grown-Up

I'm very disturbed by Playing Grown-Up: I wish I hadn't written it. I have a pet peeve against hyphenated titles, that is.

See, In titles only the first letter of a word is capped, and even though hyphenated words read and are pronounced like multiple words, they're linked and thus one word. it's a classically phyrric grammatical rule: either leave the subsequent caps off and make it look but (but be right), or add caps to it and make it officially wrong (by seem okay to the hoi polloi).

I've chosen to side with the hoi polloi in this case -- and THERE'S another tiger trap there, since hoi means the and I've said "the the people." Same with Al Queda -- Al is The. Whoever is responsible for only the nouns and not the articles of other languages carrying over into English is doing a crap job.

Oh yeah, the story. It's about a costume shop. Clerks there often have to dress up in costume, so every day is Halloween to them. For others, though, dressing up isn't a job requirement but an honest attempt to pass as normal. --Jeff