At this sad time when gun killings are so sickeningly common, the Onion here offers Swiftian satire of high order. It imagines a current dystopian moment when a grammar war has broken out between rival language style enforcement gangs; one camp is allied with the Chicago Manual of Style, the other with the AP Stylebook. In the real world, these books have been for years the standard, competing guides to publishing standards. The unsigned sketch of 160 words succinctly reports scores of publishing professionals dead, victims of violence and reprisals. My first thought, “Oh, that’s funny,” and then I caught myself. This was because in the writing in the story the wording, pace, and style are so familiar and similar to too many stories we’ve read before. I found the piece funny and disturbing, sort of in that order.

“Law enforcement officials confirmed Friday that four more copy editors were killed this week amid ongoing violence between two rival gangs divided by their loyalties to the The Associated Press Stylebook and The Chicago Manual Of Style. ‘At this time we have reason to believe the killings were gang-related and carried out by adherents of both the AP and Chicago styles, part of a vicious, bloody feud to establish control over the grammar and usage guidelines governing American English,’ said FBI spokesman Paul Holstein, showing reporters graffiti tags in which the word ‘anti-social’ had been corrected to read ‘antisocial.’ ‘The deadly territory dispute between these two organizations, as well as the notorious MLA Handbook gang, has claimed the lives of more than 63 publishing professionals this year alone.’ Officials also stated that an innocent 35-year-old passerby who found himself caught up in a long-winded dispute over use of the serial, or Oxford, comma had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

Be sure to look at the presentation of the story on the Onion site.