I was driving along a back road the other morning, half listening to NPR, when a story came on which had me reaching to crank up the volume. It was one of those brief, quirky off-beat stories specifically designed to inject a bit of much needed comic relief into the familiar daily litany of famine, pestilence, wars, rumors of wars, catastrophic weather emergencies and political wickedness in high places.

This particular snippet of reportage’ chronicled the actions of a dedicated band of outraged British citizens dubbed “Grammar Guerillas” by The London Daily Mail. Apparently, while nobody was looking, members of the city council in Cambridge, England, home to Cambridge University, one of the world’s most celebrated institutions of higher learning, had taken it upon themselves to remove all apostrophes from the local signage. “Too confusing to drivers” was the bureaucratic rational.

Suddenly, with just few strokes of the sign maker’s brush, Paul (presumably the apostle of old rather than the knighted Beatle of more recent vintage) no longer held any rightful claim to Paul’s Court. Likewise, with nary a hint of warning, the current crop of Cambridge University scholars was abruptly and unceremoniously disenfranchised, denied any and all privileges, which hitherto may have accrued to their predecessors strolling along Scholar’s Walk.

What the Grammar Guerillas had accomplished, albeit anonymously and undercover of darkness, was no petty prank or simple act of vandalism. Quite the contrary, in one truly inspired moment of civil disobedience they had carpe’d the diem, rising up as one to strike a resounding blow for the noble cause of good grammar and proper language usage!

While I’m pretty sure most of my fellow NPR listeners received that story in the light-hearted spirit in which it had been offered, I on the other hand, registered a much different response. A great surge of pride arose within me and I found myself momentarily overwhelmed with admiration for my anonymous fellow travelers. “Yes!” I thought, “That’s the ticket. Go Grammar Guerillas, go!”

Thus newly inspired by a brave band of Brit language loyalists whose bold actions, fueled by a deep and abiding belief in the rectitude of their cause, a conviction that had empowered them to heroically reinstate their displaced apostrophes, I solemnly recommitted myself to the great work that lies ahead, pledging that despite my own frequent lapses into interminable run-on sentences, such as the one I appear to be struggling to extricate myself from at this very moment, I shall strive to emulate their good works, to preserve, protect and defend the highest standards of grammar, proper pronunciation and punctuation and to faithfully pass along the gospel according to Strunk and White to generations yet unborn (whew!)

So anyway, where were we? Ah yes, I derive great solace from the knowledge that there are others who share my linguistic vision. Several years ago, a like-minded friend, a voice quite literally crying in the wilderness, singlehandedly challenged corporate policy at of one New England’s largest grocery chains. Her tireless efforts ultimately resulted in the correction of a glaring grammatical gaff, which had apparently gone unremarked in each of the stores’ checkout lines for a dozen years or more.

As a direct result of her single-minded dedication, hundreds of “Quick Check Out” lanes in myriad Hannaford grocery stores scattered across the New England landscape, now feature grammatically correct: “12 items or fewer” signage in place of the former grammatically flawed: “12 items or less.”

Victory is sweet! But, we cannot afford to rest upon our laurels. The nation’s copywriters and news directors must be persuaded to join the battle! They alone wield the editorial clout to banish from America’s airways such nonsensical phrases as “…less cars on the highway” (when, of course they meant less traffic and fewer actual cars.)

Sadly, my dream of a world liberated from such logic-challenged inanities as “far and few between” is just that, a dream, an impossible dream, destined to remain unfulfilled due to the simple fact that language — all language — is constantly changing. Whether it’s evolving or (as I strongly suspect) devolving is anybody’s guess. Either way, despite our best efforts at preserving grammatical orthodoxy, the die has been cast.

The ultimate arbiter of acceptable grammar is, was, and always will be: usage! And, it’s pretty clear where that train is headed these days. I predict that one day soon we will awaken to discover that the non-word “nucular” has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Somehow I will soldier on. I might even call that grammatically literate friend I mentioned a moment ago. Why not? Perhaps her and me could commiserate over a cup of coffee.