Recent update
- PumpkinAnkles has gone dotcom!
- Wisdom from the refrigerator
- Ye Tragical E-maile
- Which would be an awesome name for a band
- Murder at the Castle
- Non Sequiturs and the People Who Love Them
- Kids, don’t try this at home
- Meditations on Christmas
- Ask not for whom the bell chingeth …
- 25 bottles of bubble bath
It’s not easy being a guru
June 4th, 2008 by witherow
A grammar guru, that is. In my new job as an editor/writer/final authority on all things grammatical, I find myself as the one everyone comes to with the most nitpicky questions about punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation and dozens of other things that don’t end in –ation. For example:
QUESTIONING COWORKER: What is the proper way to abbreviate California?
ME (speaking): Why, according to page 231 of the AP Stylebook, it’s Calif.
ME (thinking): In the grand scheme of life, how does this matter? Somebody please tell me. I am losing my mind.
Don’t get me wrong. I can who-versus-whom as well as the rest of them, but being expected to speak in perfect grammar at all times and yet not sound like Professor Bunsen Honeydew is a bit tricky. So I have to be careful. When that doesn’t work, I have to resort to fudging.
For example, one day my friends and I were emailing back and forth about going out for pizza.
ME
Yes, let’s. They have some really good desert pizza tonight.
[I know, I know—I struggle with the spelling of desert vs. dessert. So sue me.]
SMART ALECKY FRIENDS
Um, don’t you think desert pizza will be a little … dry? I think you mean dessert pizza.
[Okay, time to fudge.]
ME
Um, if I had meant dessert pizza, I would have written dessert pizza. I mean they have desert pizza. It’s made with cactus juice and roadrunner pepperoni. DUH!
MY FRIENDS
Eww …
And then there’s the tricksy good-versus-well issue. Most people can answer the question “How are you doing?” with a simple “good.” But not so with grammar gurus. Alas, we are held to a different standard.
FRIEND
How’s the Emily?
ME
The Emily’s doing good.
FRIEND
Don’t you mean you’re doing well?
ME (fudging)
No. I mean I’m actually doing good. You know, like rescuing kittens from trees, recycling, helping octogenarians cross the street … all morning. Good deeds galore. Very busy. Whew. Let’s go eat.
In my defense (or in my desperate attempt to come up with one), English is not an easy language to master. The spelling system is totally whack (and I have historic evidence to prove its whackness. Ask me the next time you’re in the mood for a tirade). The grammar has been tampered with by funny British men in powdered wigs during the 1700s who tried to force Latin rules onto a language that was primarily Germanic/French/Schizophrenic. By schizophrenic I mean that English tries to take on the identity (including pluralization, spelling, and grammar) of several languages at once, usually when you’re writing a paper in a hurry and your spell check is on the blitz. As some insightful guy named James Nicoll said, “English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.”
Posted in That's life | | | 2 Comments
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
on June 7th, 2008 at 7:39 am
I like that guy’s definition. That is why we should all teach our children Greek and Latin. At least then our children will have some dead languages up their sleeves to help them out in their quest to understand the evil language called English. Oh, and I am right now thinking of French. I tried to stick the words “the” and “evil” together. So it is th’evil language of English that happened not to steal the anti-end letter rule from French.
on June 7th, 2008 at 9:34 am
*stalks*
I totaly blaime the french for mayking english Gramarr sough difikult to lern.