Douglas-Coffee County has certainly had its fair share of projects over the last few years – everything from city park renovations, extensive sidewalk projects, new recreation facilities, the courthouse annex, Sims Park, and a host of others.
One more project is on the schedule for later this year. It’s a relatively small but important undertaking that fixes a decades-old issue at the Coffee County Courthouse that probably very few people have noticed.
This year, it’s going to be fixed.
In different places on the Coffee County Courthouse, the word “courthouse” is written differently. On the south side and the north sides of the courthouse (the Ashley Street and Ward Street), “courthouse” is written correctly as one word — courthouse. On the east side, however (the Peterson Avenue side), it is written incorrectly as two words – court house.
It’s been that way since the courthouse renovation many, many years ago. This year, a national organization is stepping up to see that the east side gets straightened out.
The House of Appropriate Fundaments in Departments and Agencies (HAFD), a Philadelphia-based organization that provides fixes for typographical and grammatical errors for governments, municipalities, and other public and quasi-public agencies across the country, is providing funding and labor to finally bring consistency to the Coffee County Courthouse.
“Call us old school but we believe that grammar matters. Equally important is consistency in grammar. While the way the Coffee County Courthouse has the word ‘courthouse’ constructed on its entrances isn’t technically incorrect, it’s inconsistent and a little unusual. We like to see government buildings project a certain image and we’re happy to provide the funding and expertise to complete this project,” said William Murray, Director of HAFD.
HAFD will fully fund the project with no cost to taxpayers. The work is scheduled to start late in the summer and be completed before Labor Day. That means that around the Labor Day weekend, Coffee County residents will only have to worry about balancing a final summer getaway with Coffee High’s earliest-ever Homecoming game and festivities (and the only time Homecoming has been scheduled during a federal holiday weekend) as opposed to managing the aforementioned challenges AND navigating work at the courthouse.
Once the courthouse project is completed, if any funds are left over, HAFD will fix some of the street signs around the community. In several places, for example, “Gaskin Avenue” is written as “Gaskins Avenue.” “Bowens Mill Road” is also spelled “Bowen Mill Road” on some signs. “We’d like to get those straightened out as well. We also plan to conduct a comprehensive community-wide grammar survey, which includes not only street signs and building nomenclature but also an exhaustive review of government and educational web sites to make sure they are grammatically correct and stylistically consistent. Our executive leadership team will then present our findings to the appropriate agencies for them to do with our suggestions as they see fit,” said Murray.
He continued: “We can’t do anything about Homecoming on Labor Day. That’s an error we can’t fix. But we can certainly help Douglas and Coffee County become a grammatically correct community.”
Once HAFD has completed its work, Douglas and Coffee County will be listed as a Grammatically Correct Certified Community on its website.
