An occasional writer's journal

After more than fifteen years of rumour, planning, anticipation and disappointment the “most dangerous band in the world” have unleashed their latest studio album, Chinese Democracy.

In all that time the power of Guns N’ Roses to thrill their legions of fans has hardly diminished, with frontman and surviving founder member Axl Rose’s trademark searing vocals possessing a new depth, as demonstrated on the track Better.

It’s no surprise that the group remain one of the most listened to in the history of rock, although in terms of the English language, Guns N’ Roses lose a point as a “rock ‘n’ roll” band.

Rock ‘n’ roll, in its desire to be shouted loudly from recording studio to arena, needs to be snappy, abbreviated. But that doesn’t mean it can get away with casting off one of the two apostrophes that give rhythm to the term without altering the meaning.

Guns N’ Roses have always used a single stroke in their name. . . perhaps a finger raised to the rules of grammar? Gramatically speaking, without an apostrophe to indicate the missing ‘a’ in the word ‘and’, the name should be pronounced, “Guns Neh Roses”.

Only the most fastidious of sub editors would complain, and few would suggest replacing the missing apostrophe and signal a reprinting of millions of album covers. Rock ‘n’ roll is about the way it sounds, not how it looks in print.

I wonder how many readers will have noticed that in my own abbreviation, one of the apostrophes in rock ‘n’ roll is the wong way round! My “69″ should have been a “99″, if you follow my meaning. My rebellious PC insists on automatically replacing my “9″ with a “6″. Rock on, Windows!