linguistics

There are approximately 17 feet of snow on the ground.  School is canceled.  The milk delivery man is holed up in a hotel, waiting for the roads to clear. Egon, Mr. P, Leo & I are snuggled under the covers.  Egon is pondering Christmas gifts to give to family members.

E:  What does Shara hate?

M: Getting up early in the morning.

E:  What else?

M: Being laughed at.

E:  Are there any nouns that she hates?

Later, I heard Egon asking his dad:  Is there any person, place, or thing you hate?

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Definition erudition

Frank Bruni, on the front page of the New York Times, declares Ellen DeGeneres’ and Portia di Rossi’s marriage a “Sapphic Victory, but Pyrrhic.”

I’m sure Mr. Bruni and his editors were tickled by their alliterative phraseology and use of high falutin’ ancient Greek language.  However.

A “Pyrrhic victory” means a victory gained at too great a cost to the victor.

I doubt that either Ellen or Portia would describe their happily married life as a Pyrrhic victory.  Actually, I’m pretty sure that neither would view their marriage as a victory, except of love.

Let’s leave the cutesy, alliterative, oh-so-clever headline writing to the New York Post, shall we, Mr. Bruni, and Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Keller?

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“excellent communications skills, both oral and written”

I have a small button that I wear sometimes, which says “Grammar Police.”

[If I were true to the meaning of that phrase, I would have written the sentence above thusly:

“I have a small button that I wear sometimes, upon which is written ‘Grammar Police.'”

But we all understand the implied meaning of the word “says” in the first version – the button has the words ‘Grammar Police’ written on it.]

What is interesting, though, is that policing grammar seems to be more about the written word, not spoken language.  In today’s paper, the phrase “What is she, remote control?” caught my eye.  In my head, I rearranged the sentence to read “What, is she remote control?”  which in itself is not excellent grammatically, but improves the original, at least in terms of correct placement of the comma.  But read the first version out loud, and it sounds much more authentically New York (which is where it was uttered). My edition seems more generic, blander in tone.

Listen to any unscripted conversation, and transcribe it in your head.  It will be full of incomplete sentences, words slurred together, run-on sentences and all sorts of grammar horrors.  But we all understand each other pretty well, right? (Except sometimes when New Englanders and Dixielanders attempt conversation, which all to often results in a “Whut did she say?”.)

And the loss of these colloquial expressions, were they to be ironed into grammatic conformity, would render our conversations the human equivalent of the Kindle’s “reader” voice.

Recently there was a small kerfluffle over President Obama’s use of phrases like “with her and I” rather than “with her and me”  in speeches. I am pretty sanguine about this deviation – it actually sounds less stilted to my ears.

Last night, I said something to Egon, which included “Shara and dad are…”, at which he stopped me and said, ‘Shouldn’t it be “is”?’  And I had a little moment where I explained that “Shara and dad” is the functional equivalent of “they” and therefore takes the plural form of the verb.

But he has a point.  Why not, “Shara is and dad is”?

I may have to retire my button.

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