Driver License

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Alex Ferguson from San Diego, California.

Well, hello, Alex. What’s going on?

Hi, Alex.

Hi, how are you? Martha Grant.

Doing wonderfully well.

Doing well as well.

My question has to do with the use of driver’s license. It’s in the news a lot lately with a lot of the immigration stuff going on.

Right, especially here in California.

And we have a big debate at work going on with it for a while, so I just kind of would like to know the correct usage, actually.

I hear a lot in the news, you know, people saying driver’s license. But if you actually look at the document itself, it’s a driver’s license.

In California?

In California and in Texas.

So I called my dad up and had him check his driver’s license.

-huh.

And what does it say in Texas?

Driver’s license as well.

Driver’s license.

Interesting.

And so you’re having a dispute with your coworkers on this?

Kind of. It’s just an ongoing discussion. Somebody will say driver’s license, and another person will correct that person to be like driver’s license.

Oh, boy.

And if it, you know, the apostrophe S, if it’s possession, then you might be able to argue, well, what type of license is it? It’s the driver’s driver license.

Okay.

So just like to hear your thoughts on that.

Well, you know, Martha, I just pulled mine out while you guys were talking, and mine’s a New York State driver license. So there’s no possessive. There’s no apostrophe yes there at all.

And what about yours? You have a California one. Do you still have one from Louisville, from Kentucky?

Just because I’m nostalgic, I have my old Kentucky license, which is really pretty, actually. It’s got this photo of horse farms and rolling fields and a beautiful white fence. And it says driver’s license.

Alex, you know what? We don’t have a really good answer for this question. Because it’s not standardized yet.

Now, what do you think? You think it should be just plain old driver license?

I think so. You know, like if you get pulled over for a speeding ticket or something, and the cop says, let me see your, I think he should say, let me see your driver license.

Really? Because he’s talking about the document itself. But I guess it could be driver’s license if it does say driver’s license.

Well, not much resolution there, Alex, but at least you know that if it really bothers you, you can just move to a different state.

Definitely.

Maybe I’ll go to Kentucky.

There you go.

There we go. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Idaho. Take your pick.

Thank you guys very much for your time.

You’re welcome.

Take care.

I have a great show.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

You know, Grant, I don’t know. I’m looking at my two licenses side-by-side, driver license and my old Kentucky driver’s license. And I don’t know. To me, driver license looks so cold. It looks like the difference between Ariel and Times New Roman. You know, the fonts. It just looks colder without those serifs or something.

I don’t know. The apostrophe-ish is warm and homey.

Yeah, yeah.

This is going to keep me up tonight. I just know it.

Yeah, have you seen a doctor lately?

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