This morning I
saw a van for a company called Martin Ball Plastering. I was relieved by the
lack of either a comma or a hyphen.
Not all comma / hyphen use would be objectionable. ‘Martin Ball, Plastering’ would have
been okay. So would ‘Martin Ball – Plastering’. You could put a hyphen between ‘Martin’ and ‘Ball’, but that would be a
bit weird. At least it wouldn’t be offensive. The word-and-punctuation combo I
was worried about, dare I say it, was this: ‘Martin,
Ball-Plastering’.
I’m not sure what
a ball-plasterer would do. Perhaps they’d specialise in souvenir scotum-casts made from plaster of Paris. If Jimi Hendrix can immortalise his intimate area, why
shouldn’t you? Because it’s wrong, that’s why: even the most self-assured man
doesn’t want that on their mantelpiece. Specialising in testicle moulds specifically would be niche, though you could use the result as a paperweight.
Hopefully Mr Ball
is a straightforward plasterer and nothing else. Ball Plastering could be his
double-barrelled surname, but I doubt it.