The Preliminary Examination

The Society admits no-one without first considering them. Six questions follow. Answer truthfully; the Register is not edited.

1. You’re at the supermarket. The express lane sign reads: "10 Items or Less." I join the queue. I join the queue, but the word "less" bothers me. I mutter "fewer" under my breath. I have, in the past, casually asked the checkout operator if they have plans to update the signage. I go to a different check-out on principle.

2. You spot a greengrocer’s sign: "Apple’s — £1.99." I buy the apples. I mention it to my companion. I take a photograph for later. I take a photograph and post it online with a caption. I take a photograph, post it, and correct the sign with a marker when no-one is looking.

3. You’re shown the classic sentence: "I’d like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God." Your reaction: Nice tribute. I see what’s happened. Funny. I think "and that’s why we use the Oxford comma" and feel slightly tired. I have used this exact example to explain the Oxford comma to a trapped audience in the last twelve months. The Ayn Rand example is tired. I have a better, much more offensive example prepared, which I deliver from memory with impeccable timing.

4. You receive a document from a professional contact. They have used double spaces after every period. I don’t care. It’s visually distracting, but I read it. I immediately use the "Find and Replace" function to remove all double spaces before I can even look at the content. I send it back with a polite note about the obsolescence of monospaced typewriter fonts. I judge their entire professional competency, question their age, and severely downgrade my opinion of their business acumen.

5. You receive a wedding invitation that reads: "Your invited to the wedding of Sarah & Tom." I accept graciously and say nothing. I mention it to my partner but not to Sarah. I reply to Sarah to confirm attendance and, gently, to note that she means you’re. I decline on principle. I attend the wedding, having sent ahead a corrected invitation as my RSVP.

6. You are taking this quiz. Halfway through Question 4, you noticed: Nothing in particular. That the quiz was rather long. That there was a typographical error in Question 2. The typo, plus a highly inconsistent use of em-dashes throughout the copy. The typo, the dash issue, and I have already opened a new tab to draft a sharply worded email to the Society’s webmaster outlining a superior database schema for this form.