As a result of the misbehaviour of several Juntoists, I am quite sorry to announce that I, along with several other members, will be leaving The Junto and forming a new online forum for the study of early America. Our declaration follows:

In BLOG, 1 April 2017

A Declaration by British-based Members of The Junto 

in Blog assembled.

When in the course of administering a blog, it becomes necessary for some blog members to dissolve the internet bandwidth which has connected them with others, and to assume among the powers of the internet, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of WordPress entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The history of the present Administrator of The Junto is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations of British grammar and style. We here in England have had quite enough of Michael Hattem’s tyrannical adherence to American English in matters of blog form and style. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid blogosphere:

He has insisted on excising all extraneous instances of the letter ‘u’.

He has refused to recognise the term ‘full stop’, preferring instead the plebeian ‘period’.

He has demanded that punctuation marks reside inside the ugly double quotation mark.

He has mandated, without mandate, the implementation of the em dash and a single-space after punctuation.

He has colonised the middle of words with the ungainly z(ed, obviously).

Please note that our separatist faction has not reached a consensus on the usefulness of the Oxford comma.

I cannot say with certainty which faction our Scottish and ex-patriot members will join.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these bloggers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Blogging. I am aggrieved and dismayed that this state of affairs has resulted in such disharmony, but can offer no path forward to reconciliation. For the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Words, our Punctuation,and our sacred Honor.

We thank you for your kind support of our writing in this forum, and can only hope that remaining members who have also long endured this reign of tyranny and arbitrary grammar plan to support our new endeavour.