a gallimaufry of grammar

Once there was a girl named Lindsey who had a love affair with words and grammar. Congratulations! You have found her blog. Oh, and she writes about music too! You can appreciate those pithy musings here.

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Wisdom from Lynne Truss

Today I rediscovered a beloved book of mine: "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation," by the deliciously witty Lynne Truss. Those of you who have never read this gem will doubtless enjoy the story behind its name, which I will share below, as quoted directly from the back of Truss' book.

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Hilarious, yes? (Yes.) By the same token, if you've ever happened to compare sentences such as "Let's eat grandpa!" and "Let's eat, grandpa!", you know that punctuation can, quite literally, save lives.

One more blurb for your amusement:

Part of one's despair, of course, is that the world cares nothing for the little shocks endured by the sensitive stickler. While we look in horror at a badly punctuated sign, the world carries on around us, blind to our plight. We are like the little boy in The Sixth Sense who can see dead people, except that we can see dead punctuation.

— Lynne Truss, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," page 3

Ah, this lady does so know how to commiserate.

(I feel like Cole understands, too.)

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Today's post will be my first concerning prepositions, and I highly doubt it will be my last. I came across this decorative tray while perusing the lovely trinkets at Barnes & Noble (not Barnes & Nobles, thank you) yesterday evening. I understand that ending sentences with prepositions is more colloquial, and that oftentimes it would sound both very dry and exceedingly old fashioned to place them before the sentence's end. However, could we please avoid chill-inducing phrases like "do as you would be done by"? That is both lazy and sloppy, and my teeth do not appreciate having all of their enamel worn off by force. How about the good old "Do unto others..."? What was wrong with that?

Since deciding that this post would be about the improper use of prepositions, I've discovered approximately a trillion examples. Two more will be shared today. The first was contained in an email from Twitter that I received just a few moments ago. Behold:

("Unsubscribe to"? Really, Twitter? I think I did receive this message in error.)

While we're on the subject, I am aware that Twitter is the appropriate arena for short, pithy blurbs; but said blurbs should, at the very least, be proponents of good grammar. A 140-character limit may seem restrictive, but rest assured: It is ample space for flawlessness. And to think, the prepositional faux pas I have posted above is being reluctantly ingested by anyone who reads their email! How positively nightmarish.

My last example is one that I notice more and more upon leaving my home of Cape Cod. Many people like to say "in Cape Cod," as if the Cape were itself a giant town or city. Actually, we are a man-made island, so you should say "on Cape Cod." I know it's confusing since you would say "in Hawaii," but Hawaii is a whole state. By extension, you should not say "out of Cape Cod." Sorry, Vampire Weekend.

(Hyannis Port is so not a ghetto, either; that's where the Kennedy Compound is. But the boys were not completely wrong: The bottleneck can absolutely be "a shit show.")

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Mumpsimuses and Sumpsimuses

Dear readers, I believe it might be easier for me to maintain this blog if I convert to a more compact format. How do you feel about laconic morsels instead of voluminously long posts? I certainly feel hopeful! Welcome to my first condensed post, in which I will discuss two exciting words that regrettably sound like diseases: "mumpsimus" and "sumpsimus"!

A mumpsimus, contrary to popular belief, is not someone who has contracted the mumps, but rather someone who persists in erroneous practice out of habit or sheer tenacity. (In addition to the person who practices it, this term can also refer to the practice itself.) Recall my earlier post about solecisms -- breaches of good manners, etiquette and/or proper grammatical usage -- and let us discuss how they apply here. A mumpsimus would continue to use solecisms even after realizing that they are incorrect or detrimental.

Consider Lindsay Lohan:

(Wait, urgh. Why are we considering her, again?)

Although she knows perfectly well that her partying ways are injurious to her health, her loved ones, everyone named Lindsey/Lindsay and all variants thereof and my eyes, she obstinately continues along the same path.

By contrast, a sumpsimus adheres to strictly correct forms of behavior, rejecting erroneous forms despite their surge in popularity. I cannot think of a celebrity to exemplify this; but concerning grammar, it would refer to those who still say "I'm well, thank you," instead of capitulating to the more prevalent colloquialism, "I'm good." (I will note that if you employ "good" as an adjective and broaden your mind to consider alternate interpretations of the question "How are you?", this phrase is a legitimate reply.)

Now you know all about mumpsimuses and sumpsimuses, so go and spread the wealth!

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The subjunctive: It exists.

Followers and readers, I know you may be few, but I still feel compelled to write for you. We are long overdue for a healthy dose of linguistic decadence, and what better way to get our fix than by examining an oft-overlooked yet vitally important verb form in English? Hold on to your hats as we investigate the subjunctive.

I come to you having studied French for some 11 years and Italian for three, with a semester of Latin thrown in for good measure. I remember the French subjunctive being introduced to me in a way that insinuated a torturous and agonizing learning experience (aren't those ultimately the best kind, though?). It was hardly as arduous as I had anticipated: The subjunctive chapter in our book was only purporting to be that way. While studying in Paris for five months, I realized that even the French themselves are often bamboozled by le subjonctif -- and in colloquial spoken French, it's hardly even used. Fine, France. Fine.

But while the subjunctive in English is significantly less complicated than its French counterpart, it absolutely still exists. You probably use it daily, unbeknownst to yourself and those around you. It's a devious little sneak.

("And unfortunately, it's alive and healthy in our time." Oh, that I could always find such perfectly corresponding French-subtitled illustrations of my points.)

The problem, of course, is that many people use the subjunctive incorrectly. This trouble may stem from the fact that I do not recall explicitly learning it in English. I must have picked it up off the streets (read: from the approximately five books per week I devoured as a child). But for those not so privileged or literarily voracious, or for those who simply relish my acerbic wit, read on!

First: a definition. The subjunctive is a "mood," rather than a tense. If you do not condone nebulous things -- for example, the 1960s -- you may take issue with this.

(Tie-dye is still cool, right? It's due for a resurgence soon, right?)

While the subjunctive does convey freer things like hopes, wishes and doubts, it's also used to express necessity and purpose. Often, the subjunctive form is the same as the plain old indicative form, but tiny differences do arise with the third-person singular, such as with the following sentence:

She said it was imperative that he follow her instructions.

You may feel an urge to change this to "he follows"; after all, you would say "He follows her." But that would be hypercorrection, so resist that urge! The introductory phrase "it was imperative that" requires the subjunctive mood. Think of it this way: The "she" and "he" in the above sentence have two separate sets of desires, and one person wants the other to do something. There's the slightest bit of uncertainty because of the differing wills, and that uncertainty is what requires the subjunctive.

Now, on to those hopes and wishes. Every time you talk about something that is not true but could be, you must use the subjunctive, as here:

If it were still 2012, I would not yet have written this.

Many people mistakenly use the past indicative, "was," in such a situation.

(Even famous people, as in, "If I was a rich girl, na na na na..." ad nauseam.)

The worst part is that Gwen Stefani took her inspiration for "Rich Girl" from "If I Were a Rich Man," the flawlessly titled musical number from "Fiddler on the Roof." Oh, Gwennie, it's a good thing you're wildly famous and beautiful ... and already rich, so why exactly do you need an "if" song?

Apropos of nothing, can we please discuss how it has already been nine years since Gwen's first solo album? Also, how is it already 2013? Where does the time go? I promise I won't let another year transpire before I update again.

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Yes, there's a word for that: Part III

It has occurred to me that I should post more infrequently so as to conserve topics for the future; hence, my recent lack of update. Today, however, I bring you the third installment of the "There's a Word for That" series -- and it spans two topics which, judging by the fact that you're reading this right now, I believe we can agree on: food and grammar.

First, where it all begins: the borborygmus. It's a vaguely onomatopoeic term for the rumbling of your stomach. To be more specific, it is defined as "the gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines." Scientific definitions are unnecessarily graphic like that. Not like Japanese onomatopoeia, which is often more reminiscent of adorable happy fun times. A Japanese relative of the mammoth "borborygmus" is the precious "グーグー" or "guuguu." Points for trying, Latin and Greek, but small repetitive words are going to out-cute you every time.

(Why did I just find this on Google image search? Oh, Japan.)

Do you often wonder where most of your money goes? Do you subsequently realize you eat out and go for coffee and get takeout about 87% more than the average person? There's a word for that! It's the Latin-derived "abligurition," or prodigal spending on food. Apparently, even ancient Romans needed a word to categorize those people who were always sneaking surreptitious visits to the Forum for extra groceries.

("Come on, Marcus Obesitas, save some for us!")

While you're eating all that food, make sure to Fletcherize, or chew slowly and thoroughly. We can thank U.S. nutritionist Horace Fletcher for this term. It seems both generous and derisive to use Fletcher's surname as verb this way. He may have worked to popularize the term honorably, but much of the populace was skeptical of his methods, and of course the perfectly serviceable words "chew" and "masticate" were already extant. The entire situation reminds me of the unfortunate episode on "Cheers" in which Cliff Clavin became synonymous with a derrière:

TOMMY: Just the other day, I messed up, you know, and my supervisor told me to get my head out of my Clavin.

— "Cheers" season 2, episode 18

Poor Cliff. He always was the butt of the joke.

Finally, no matter how many times you chew your food, you should avoid the use of solecisms, by which I mean that you should practice good manners and proper dining etiquette. Incidentally, the term "solecism" has a second meaning that I would love to address, and that is "a nonstandard or ungrammatical usage." This meaning refers to words like "unequality," sentences like "There's no more waffles," and the entirety of George W. Bush's presidency.

(His uninalienable rights state that he may hold that phone however he wants.)

Well, readers, I am satiated with new words for the time being. I received a book on etymology for Christmas, and I hope to incorporate its brilliance in my next post. Don't feign disinterest. Your accismus (i.e., feigning disinterest) does not fool me. These pop culture references are surely facilitating a mass migration toward the semantic ambrosia that is my blog as we speak.

(In a far-off place known as my addled mind, the scene above is occurring even now. You can't ruin it. It's happening.)

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Yes, there's a word for that: Part II

I return with a vengeance from the day of rest I allotted myself, which I predictably spent amassing new and exciting material for discussion. It is now time for a mélange of words that I feel are especially relevant to the interests of hoi polloi. Let's get started!

This first word, especially pertinent during the holidays, is "abderian," or "given to laughter and foolish merriment." And why shouldn't we be abderian after eleven months of slogging through torturous work days and being constantly apprised of lamentable news? After all, January is almost upon us; and while a new year is replete with shining new prospects, January itself is often quite anticlimactic. Nevertheless, January 2009 was quite memorable for something unforeseen, and that something was Aretha Franklin's exquisite and dazzling hat.

(The milliner who made that hat is probably still riding the coattails of its success. Ah, sartorial humor.)

I must say, I have high hopes for this coming Inauguration Day, especially now that we know what boundless hilarity may ensue.

(Exhibit A: Stephen Colbert is America, and so can you.)

I first encountered this next word just today, and was I ever ecstatic upon doing so. It is "lalochezia," or "emotional relief gained by using vulgar language." Oh, how very pertinent to the lifestyles so many people I know -- myself included. Don't be tempted to say "cheese": It's pronounced "lahl-oh-kee-zee-uh." Few things are as cathartic as a fulmination of profanity, as long as the outpouring doesn't stray into the area of our next word.

That word is "battology," or a tedious repetition of the same words. Often this is done for emphasis; but if you are not Edgar Allan Poe, and if you do not offset your reiteration with captivating language like "tintinnabulation," you are probably going to be ignored.

(How seriously you are taken as a poet is directly proportional to the level of pretension attained by your facial hair. Sadly, we women are at a sizable disadvantage.)

There also happens to be a term for what we were practicing just the other day with the intermingling of multiple languages. To "relexify" is to replace words of one language with those of another without sacrificing grammatical structure. This is the practice that creates such hybrid languages as "spanglish," "franglais," and the unauthorized mixture of French, English and Latin that my high school companions and I would often practice. The phrase "I am semisomnus and would like dormir" actually happened, and I assure you that it was quite brilliant at the time.

Often we relexify because we cannot remember a word in the principal language, or because a word in another language simply fits better. The latter was the case with the handy Latin "semisomnus" for "half-asleep," versus the rather more cumbersome French "à moitié endormi." Concerning the former, this inability to remember a word is known as lethologica. What if you can't remember that term? Well, then, I have bad news: a. This is a recursive condition, and b. You've been Incepted.

("We need to go deeper.")

And deeper we shall go. A more specialized form of lethologica is lethonomia, or the inability to remember names. I am afflicted with this condition more frequently than I would like to admit. Sometimes I attempt to combat it by being inordinately competent at remembering faces and esoteric facts about people, but more often I wind up waiting restively until their name gets mentioned again.

To prevent any pandiculation (stretching and yawning), I will be truncating our discussion here, and you will simply have to wait until the next installment in this series to be further enlightened. Oh, I do enjoy cliffhangers.

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Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.

I like to maintain a bit of continuity between posts, and for the last few days my blog entries have been dovetailing nicely into one another. Today, continued from my mention of the redundancy of "ATM machine," I bring you other phrases that unnecessarily reiterate information.

First, continuing with the bank theme: "PIN number." I understand that, in omitting the "number" part, there exists the slightest possibility of confusion between "my PIN" and "my pin." This is where an essential component of language called context comes into play. If you are standing in front of an ATM while uttering one of the above homonyms, chances are you mean "PIN"; if you're hemming pants, you probably mean "pin." Context will rarely disappoint you here. When would the sentence "I can't remember my pin!" ever make sense? Do you habitually forget singular materials for sewing class and then feel compelled to articulate your forgetfulness?

(Okay, if you had to remember THIS sequence every time you went to the bank, I can see as how we'd have an issue here.)

Here's one more redundancy concerning an acronym, which seems to propound that America needs to brush up on its abbreviation acumen: "HIV virus." It's unfortunate enough that the nastily virulent "human immunodeficiency virus" comes up in conversation at all without our manhandling its meaning. Understandably, it's compressed to three letters almost without exception, but it's hardly burdensome to remember that the "V" in "HIV" already stands for "virus."

This next example harks back to my earlier post about borrowing from other languages and failing to realize what, precisely, we have borrowed. The word "chai" is a Hindi or Urdu word for "tea," so when you say "chai tea" ... you see where I'm going.

(Twinsies!)

This is very similar to our Italian sandwich situation of two days ago. "Panino" has the connotation in English of a pressed, grilled sandwich, and "chai" signifies sweetened tea with milk and spices. So when referring to each tasty eatable, choose the more specialized word -- but just the one will suffice.

While we're at it, here's another bilingual bonus for you. By all means, be ostentatious and use the French "RSVP" on your invitations -- but be aware that it means "répondez, s'il vous plaît," or "please respond," and saying "please RSVP" spoils the elegance.

Speaking of "bonus," though the phrase "added bonus" is ubiquitous -- especially around this time of year -- "bonus" already means "something extra given freely." Similarly, "free gift" is an awkward construction because gifts are already free. I would be quite taken aback if everyone who had offered me birthday presents demanded monetary compensation, especially because this is me right now:

(The direct result of four years' worth of college -- regrettably, minus the top hat.)

Now, my fellow Americans, it's time to reconsider our use of the word "fellow." We tend to use this term the same way we use salt, i.e., in everything, especially when it doesn't belong there. Phrases like "fellow classmate" and "fellow co-worker" are illogical because the suffix "-mate" and the prefix "co-" already imply what "fellow" then overemphasizes.

My last example today is my personal favorite, in that I am actually being very facetious. People love spouting balderdash like "the reason is, is that..." or "the reason why is because...". You can make your point much more quickly and save your listeners a profusion of anguish if you omit the second "is" and the "why," respectively. You will then need to change "because" into "that." "The reason is that" is a phrase more eloquent and streamlined than either of those clumsy garbles from above.

This post is dedicated to someone I once knew whom everyone called P.J. Jenkins. Guess what that "J" signified.

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Lazy English

With grammar on the whole, and with speaking especially, we Americans are notoriously lazy. How else could the already-brief "okay" have been foreshortened to the infinitesimal "k"? Why else would we avoid articulating the virtually painless "probably" -- "prob'ly" or "prolly," anyone? And what else could have caused the phenomenon called metathesis, morphing words like "comfortable" from the intuitive "kuhm-fer-tuh-buhl" to the curious "kuhmf-ter-buhl"? I rest my case.

Our laziness hardly stops there. We seem to have a marked aversion to properly forming the past participles of words. Have you ever read a menu and scratched your head at how puzzling "whip cream" looks? Something about it seems wrong, but you just can't remember what.... Oh, of course! It's "whipped cream," because whip cream would be the following:

(I am both proud and saddened to reveal that those are my own skills you are admiring, since my image search for "whip cream" yielded no serviceable results. Apparently America is very unaware of this error.)

Even if people who say "whip cream" actually mean the above monstrosity, the practicality and science behind a whip made out of cream continues to elude me. The same goes for "ice tea" and "old fashion," but I don't know how to illustrate either of those, so please just know that it is "iced tea" (since presumably "ice tea" would be water), and "old fashioned" (because "old fashion" would be a modified noun connoting fashion that is now passé).

Incidentally, dear ice cream, you are little help in regard to consistency. Sometimes I like to imagine what "icèd cream," à la Shakespeare, would look like, at which time I am able to experience a mustachioed waffle cone prancing around my brain. I also fondly remember that earworm from good old Homestar Runner, regrettably entitled "Where U Goin' 2?", in which "Paunchberry Icèd Cream" is advertised.

(Spoiler alert: It did not go viral. You can, however, still watch it here!)

Despite using chatspeak, ending sentences with prepositions, and doing that annoying thing where the accent looks like "ē" or "é" but should definitely be "è," the cartoon astutely observes the redundancy of "ATM machine," a topic we will broach again very soon.

Now that today's silliness quota has been reached, let's get back on track. Another instance of lazy English occurs with auxiliary verbs (also known as helping verbs). People like to say "should of," "would of," and "could of," instead of the proper "should have," etc. "Of" is a preposition, not a verb -- so the laziness here lies in not stopping to reason out the meaning behind the words. The only time I can imagine "should of" working is when you are avowing that "it should, of course, be 'should have.'" Are you avowing that? Good for you.

This next example is another that occurs only in spoken English. It is the egregious "whole nother." There are a few correct alternatives, depending on context: "another whole [noun]," "a whole other," or simply "another." "A whole nother" is definitely not option d on this list, because what is a "nother"? The only way you will find it listed in a dictionary is to make reference to this heedless mistake. Why do we need a clumsy, nonsensical way to say something when there already three correct ways?

(Dr. Soup, you sound like a fine, upstanding and quite appetizing gentleman, but I wish you wouldn't promote misinformation this way.)

Please don't get the wrong impression: I believe that children absolutely deserve a healthy dose of imaginary words. Occasionally, in my own poetry, I also invent words. I adored Roald Dahl growing up (and still do), but I learned to distinguish his made-up "scrumdiddlyumptious" words because they were so ridiculously exaggerated that I knew they couldn't be real. The problem with pseudo-words like "nother" is that they're so close to the real thing that children can't discern the impostors, and my background does not allow me to condone that.

Some types of laziness in English complicate situations that are actually easier when correct, such as the following example from an episode of "Parenthood." After Amber sleeps with Haddie's ex-boyfriend and Haddie's friends are calling Amber names, Haddie demands something like, "What is your guys' problem?" This is an accurate representation of real-life teenagers and their dubious understanding of grammar, but seriously -- "your guys'"?

(Haddie seems unconcerned. Sigh.)

Maybe you are not truly comprehending the horror here, because it is exponentially more awful when you hear it. It sounds like "YOUR GUYZEZ." I used three types of emphasis because in my head it actually approximates horrible yodeling, echoing ad infinitum off mountains. I beg of you to simplify your life and my therapy sessions and simply say "your." It is that easy.

One more point of contention: "these ones" (or "those ones"). I maintain that the only time you can correctly say "these ones," instead of the perfectly adequate "these," is when you are referring to money.

(Look at all those ones!)

It is time now for me to go and watch more "Parenthood" listen to that Homestar Runner song ad nauseam correct people's grammar elsewhere. As always, thank you for reading, and I look forward to our next discussion!

[thenthelettinggo]

Americanization -- or misappropriation?

Hello, dear readers! I apologize for the lack of a blog post yesterday, but I was busy braving the apocalypse having my wisdom teeth removed, and I didn't trust myself not to write some loopy-drug-induced poppycock I'd want to recant later. I am now partially recovered and able to blog with one hand while icing my face with the other, and I've had this topic on the back burner for a few days, so let's do this. Let's also hope I've got some wisdom hidden away in a place that is not inside my recently extracted molars, otherwise we're in trouble. Fingers crossed!

English is so lovely, and also so difficult to learn -- partially because it is an amalgam of many different languages, and partially because there are so many more instances of situations that break grammatical rules than those that follow them. Today, let's focus on the former reason. We are forever borrowing words and phrases from foreign tongues for the resourceful purpose of enriching our own. However, when we do so, we often fail to ensure a seamless fit. Instead, we tend to toss them into our language haphazardly, like jalapeños on a salad, and hope for the best.

(Stock photos are hilarious. No one is ever this excited about salad.)

If you've seen the movie "Role Models," you might remember the scene where Paul Rudd's character upbraids a barista from Starbucks. His tone is demeaning, but he is accurate, and his reproach conveniently epitomizes today's topic. Let's revisit his quotation:

"No, 'venti' is 'twenty.' Large is large. In fact, tall is large and 'grande' is Spanish for 'large.' 'Venti' is the only one that doesn't mean 'large.' It's also the only one that's Italian. Congratulations, you're stupid in three languages." -- Danny, "Role Models"

I'll edit this a bit to point out that "grande" means "large" in Italian just as it does in Spanish, but there's still enough truth in the above passage to highlight the stupidity of the other two size names. Oh, Starbucks. I covet your overpriced chai lattes, but you are really not helping this whole Italian-American crossover. I am vehemently opposed to "Americanize" becoming a synonym for "make stupid and nonsensical," so let's see where else we've gone wrong, shall we?

I love Italian, and by extension I love a good Italian sandwich -- and my progenitors must have as well, seeing as how they've appropriated the Italian "panini" for use in English. While in its mother tongue the word connotes sandwiches in general, in English it's used to mean specifically those deliciously pressed and grilled sandwiches (Brownie points if they're sporting authentic-looking grill marks!). This is all well and good, but when a restaurant menu advertises "a panini," or -- even worse -- "paninis," my teeth begin to grind together in a most distressing way, and this unfortunately tends to impede any sort of eating. If we translate both of the above phrases so that they are entirely in English, their meanings would be "a sandwiches" and something akin to "sandwicheses," respectively. Okay, Gollum.

(As even this otter can tell you, those are overwhelmingly INCORRECT.)

Consider the delightful mammal above as a metaphor for language construction. The blue and purple cups are the grammar rules we already have in place, while the red cup is a term borrowed from another language. While the red cup is still a cup and should hypothetically still fit with its brethren, it cannot and should not be jammed in without paying heed to the cups that were there first.

The easy fix for this is for me to offer the information that "panino" is the singular form of "panini" and should be employed as such, since in Italian, "-i" is the regular suffix for a masculine plural noun. The more difficult solution is for Americans to take the initiative to learn at least the basics of a Latin-based language, so as to approach the source of as much as 50% of their own vernacular. This may seem impractical as far as fitting into one's day-to-day life ("Language courses? On top of the other 78 billion things I've got to get done this month?!"). In reality, all it takes is a simple yet magical combination: the knowledge that something is incorrect in the first place, plus a little curiosity.

Let's tackle some more in the way of food, and specifically, sandwiches. (Somewhere, Joey Tribbiani is pulling his trusty fork out of his pocket.) You know that sandwich called roast beef au jus? All right, just for fun, here's a picture:

  (Mmmm, enticing.)

Well, when used in the name of the sandwich, "au jus" is perfectly fine: it's a French term meaning, predictably, "with juice." But when you refer to the delectable drippings pictured above as "the au jus," you are saying "the with the juice," or, to incorporate all possible meanings of "au," "the at/to the juice." What? No. Stop that. Stop it right now.

Another example that has nothing to do with sandwiches: "etc." We borrowed this from the Latin "et cetera" and then predictably got lazy and abbreviated it to "etc." E-T-C-PERIOD. To whomever is writing "ect." everywhere, what exactly are you abbreviating, please? Is it "ectoplasm"? "Ectomorph," perhaps? I will tell you that the letters you have selected to abbreviate "et cetera" are ectopic. Please remedy them.

I'll close today by revealing that my remark about laziness in grammar has sparked a wonderful idea for my next post. Tune in tomorrow -- same place, relatively same time. That would be right here on "A Gallimaufry of Grammar" and circa late afternoon, respectively.

[thenthelettinggo]

Word collecting

I consider myself an avid collector of words. Why else would I have a Word document on my computer that acts as a personal dictionary detailing words I want to use more regularly, or an account on dictionary.com to which I regularly add favorite words? Aside from the fact that I was an English major, I am a writer, and I'm organized to a fault, it's because I like to be able to find intelligent substitutes for simple words. Even if these often scientific-sounding terms would sound bombastic in everyday conversation, sometimes just knowing they exist is enough to fill me with glee. They are like a secret trading card game you can use in a battle of wits. Nerdgasm!

I have an impressive array of lexical gifts for you today, readers, so I hope you are prepared to auscultate and appreciate. Perhaps you remember my comparison of "expectorate" to "spit" from a few days ago. Allow me to continue in the same vein with more bodily functions, won't you? Similarly, the verb "eructate" is an overly fancy way of saying "to burp." It can also be used to describe the eruption of a volcano. I am not convinced that these are by any means commensurate, but how handy that this word has not just one but two convenient uses! Incidentally, if anyone needs a speaker for an infomercial, I'm available.

If ever you are injured, you may want to shout dramatically, "I've got a contusion!" since this is a decidedly more impressive state of affairs than having a bruise. By the same token, ordinary scrapes are more worthy of soap operas when called excoriations. To do the thing properly, when a burn heals you'll want to refer to the scab as an eschar, pronounced the same way as the first two syllables of "escargot." While we're at it, we might as well mention that all of these conditions are cutaneous, or "concerning skin"! How quaint.

There are lots of words that mean "like a ______." These are quite entertaining and often breathtaking since "-eous" and "-escent" are such lovely suffixes. I am actually convinced that this was one of the largest contributing factors to Evanescence's popularity, aside from the fact that Amy Lee has an impossible voice and a lot of people were agonizing over the tribulations of junior high in 2003, myself included.

(Also, this album cover kicks some pretty serious ass.)

If nothing else, by now you have gleaned that I am ridiculously prone to extraneous references. Now, let's focus on those aforementioned "-like" words. For example, "arborescent" means "treelike." One of my poems is entitled "Arborescence," and it is a very quirky and endearing poem. Perhaps on a slow day I will post it for you. Another of these fine specimens is "erinaceous," meaning "like a hedgehog." When will this be useful? Rarely. But when do I remember its existence and smile to myself? More often than normal people should.

Many words in my collection describe material. For instance, "calcareous" means "chalky"; "coriaceous" means "leathery"; "sebaceous" is a thrilling and aurally preferable substitute for "fatty." Very good for poets, for obvious reasons. I don't need to tell you twice that sometimes descriptions need to be rejuvenated, and a dose of one of these words may just be the perfect ingredient.

Oh, I adore discovering more colorful words for colors. Please find below an artfully constructed hodgepodge of poetic and romantic terms for all the colors of the rainbow.

(And the white background is albicant!)

To conclude, I feel that the following image will never be more appropriate than it is at this very moment.

[thenthelettinggo]

Fingernails on the chalkboard

The title of this post is what happens in my head, right down to the resulting flinch and full-body shudder, when people mispronounce, misspell and misuse the words and phrases I am about to discuss. Contrary to popular belief, we grammarians are not here to be sniveling bigots. We are here to foster a sense of love and respect for our language. I realize that some of us tend to do so in a way that leans toward bigotry, but really this is because we are attempting to conceal our desperation at what has been happening to our beloved linguistic system.

It pains me that children in this day and age are beginning to think that "thru" is an acceptable substitute for "through." "Excaping" is practically more widespread an action than "escaping." The "there"/"their"/"they're" trilogy is starting to take on the Greek definition of the word "trilogy," by which I mean it's a series of three tragedies performed one after the other. And children who don't understand how to construct a proper sentence turn into adults who don't know how to construct a proper sentence, which -- let's be honest -- is a bit embarrassing, especially when there are German and Dutch children who can speak our language better than we can. It might be easier if people just admitted to needing that correction, that little Ross Geller voice in their ear from time to time. For the children.

(Ross would like you to know that "It's not 'who,' it's 'whom'!" Please consider the validity of his advice on a case-specific basis.)

So let's begin -- I've got a lot to get through. Through. And it's going to be rapid-fire.

You know that strong black coffee Europeans drink? It's "espresso," never "expresso." Not even if you're on a train.

"Nuclear" is one of those words that's pronounced exactly how it looks. There are no tricks here. If you pronounce it "NU-cu-lar," you are either complicating matters for yourself or you are being an unmindful follower. I once had to sit through an entire presentation on nuclear energy in which the term was of course used myriad times, but the presenter was saying it incorrectly. Please, please do not be that guy.

Similarly, "asterisk" is another sound-it-out example. I'm not sure who popularized "asterick," but a lot of people are now being deprived of their rights to a very satisfying sibilation and receiving instead a word that sticks abhorrently in one's throat. Ick.

I know "supposably" might make a speaker feel pleasantly intelligent -- and believe me, I love being clever as much as anyone -- but when you mean "supposedly," you are actually just being confusing. The former is a much rarer word meaning "able to be supposed," and it is not the same as the latter, which means "according to what is believed." I'm going to use this point to segue nicely into misspellings by adding that when you reply to a question by saying "defiantly," you almost certainly mean "definitely," although "Defiantly!" is both more heroic and more hilarious as an answer.

"Accommodate" has two c's and two m's, as in "I can't believe this hotel can accommodate such high-profile guests who routinely spell this word wrong on their comment cards." Full stop.

"Embarrass" is another of those double-double-consonant types. There are a great many example sentences I could employ here -- but I think you've already figured out where I'm going with this, so to use one might actually be overkill. Moving on!

The expression is not "for all intensive purposes," but "for all intents and purposes." What would the former mean, exactly? All I am managing to conjure in my mind's eye is someone being exhaustively persecuted under one of those single, uncovered light bulbs, and while this is vaguely amusing, I feel that it is somehow wrong.

I do believe the single most irksome misuse of a word I've ever had the misfortune to encounter is "literally." When used sparingly (I'm looking at you, Chris Traeger from "Parks and Recreation"!) and to mean what it really means, this is an innocuous term. On the other hand, sentences like "I literally died!" both a. make the speaker sound ignorant, and b. do not make an ounce of sense. I think my italics-as-emphasis shtick is losing effect at this point because of how much sense that sentence does not make.

That's all for now, since I have literally been typing this for hours.

Disclaimer: If you have ever made one of the errors detailed above, do not worry. Your secret is safe with me. However, if you continue to make this error now that you know it is, in fact, an error, this is an offense punishable by being forced to read the iTunes "Terms and Conditions." Eddie Izzard wishes you good luck with that.

[thenthelettinggo]

Yes, there's a word for that.

Well! Yesterday's post certainly has set the bar high. Today I'm going to be a bit more straightforward and discuss a special breed of word I love: the "I'm-so-excited-there's-a-word-for-that!" word. This type of word makes me giddy with excitement.

Let's investigate some examples. First: "filipendulous." It actually means "hanging by a single thread." How thrilled was I when I stumbled across this gem? Monumentally thrilled. For example, whereas the ornaments on my Christmas tree used to be simply hanging, they are now filipendulous. "Oh?" an interlocutor might ask. "Are they?" "Yes, quite festively so," I would reply gaily.

Apropos of nothing, sometimes it's good to plan out hypothetical conversations like this so you can avoid what the French call "esprit de l'escalier," or the inability to think of a proper retort until it's too late. Literally, this means "the spirit/wit of the staircase," which makes minimal sense unless you, like the French philosopher who coined the term, also lived in the 1700s and attended debates solely on the second floors of homes. Despite the evolution of architecture, the gist of the phrase stuck, and it remains so useful that we have since adopted its use in English.

You see, it is not always pretentious if you opt for a more obscure term. Sometimes it is actually economical, because there is literally no other term as thorough and precise as the one you have chosen to use. Poets live for this, because often we need to fit a lot of meaning in either a very small space or some type of specific meter or form. Actually, I have just realized that my new aspiration in life is to use "esprit de l'escalier" successfully as one of the line endings of a villanelle, or maybe a pantoum, depending on both my level of ambition and the rest of the world's ability to tolerate my delirium.

Our third example finds itself in the elegant "postprandial." We can again thank Latin for this beauty. Have you ever wanted to say "after-dinner" without actually saying it? (Read: Do you habitually annoy others with your Oxfordian vocabulary?) Now you can do both of those things! Hooray! Postprandial beverages and postprandial walks (ambulations?) are the kind of stately yet tongue-in-cheek activities a wordsmith of Shakespeare's caliber would enjoy describing.

Ah, this next word makes me smile. It is the eloquent "quaquaversal," meaning "sloping downward from the center in all directions." It is relevant in geology and little else, but this does not mean it should be overlooked. In fact, because it is mainly used to describe land formations, I choose to accept the challenge of applying it in more poetic situations. Perhaps "The streamers fluttered quaquaversally from the maypole," or "The fireworks illuminated the sky in quaquaversal brilliance." I realize that sentences like this need to be few and far between, since not everyone is like you and me, in that they may need time to recover from such concentrated doses of phrasal artfulness.

Finally, I will leave you with two words that, when used together, perfectly describe me: "sesquipedalian" and "cruciverbalist." The first means "given to using long words"; the second, "lover of crossword puzzles." And with that, I take the reins, and I take my leave, and I certainly try not to take myself too seriously.

[thenthelettinggo]

The grammar gods must have known I was planning on starting this blog today. As luck would have it, I found plenty of material for an excellent first post upon collecting my prescription at CVS (wisdom teeth out on Friday, ick). One of the two items I received was a large bottle of chlorhexidine gluconate, which, for purposes of not screaming in frustration, we'll shorten to a more friendly "oral rinse." The rather blurry label from said oral rinse, as photographed by my uncooperative phone, is pictured above.

Let's consider the text of this label. First, note that "swish" is misspelled, a fact that might be very confusing to me were English not my first language. Luckily it is, so this is relatively low on the hierarchy of points to nitpick, although simple typos do so niggle at my brain. But let us read on, because the word I am longing to discuss here is "expectorate." It baffles me that the same label that attempts the use of "swish," a cheerful instance of onomatopoeia, would then so abruptly shift into the higher gear demanded by words like "expectorate." Yes, all right -- the most obvious alternative would be "spit," which is both simple and crude and additionally a bit disgusting, but really? Zero to sixty in two lines? I'm tempted to suggest "expel," but that has rather unsavory connotations as well. Perhaps a more gentle "rinse" would be appropriate?

But let's not get distracted from the matter at hand: "expectorate." To make matters worse, or at least more complicated, I tend to think of this term in conjunction with Gaston's eponymous song from "Beauty and the Beast," in which he claims to be "especially good at" doing so, complete with emphatic demonstration, but right after the word "spit" has already been used. This leads me to wonder how many children actually make the connection between word and action. Clearly, the target audience for Disney films finds its minimum at an age that barely requires children to talk, let alone comprehend gargantuan terms like "expectorate." I'm fairly certain that the first time I watched "Beauty and the Beast," the extent of my sensory overload left me to watch the songs and stories unfold with little regard for their lyrics. After all, what 4-year-old turns on a Disney movie with the intent of learning college-level vocabulary?

(Obligatory still of referenced movie to help break up six paragraphs of text.)

I think the conclusion we are rapidly approaching here is that our words fit into a spectrum of different tones -- and although this system does seem jarring at times, it is necessary to add flavor and connotation to our language. As with the Disney movie example, using words from several different points on the spectrum provides various meanings for all sorts of audience members. It's the children who find humor in watching a fully grown cartoon man spit versus the adults who can simultaneously appreciate his expectorating. Oh ho ho!

So now, next time someone asks you what your drugstore prescription and a Disney movie have in common, you'll be able to tell them! Or, if this is not a frequently-raised subject among your friends, I've hopefully at least given you something to think about. It certainly is intriguing -- thrilling, even! -- how our language so often juxtaposes different tones and word registers without a second thought. Who would have suspected a prescription bottle could make me first so irked by, and subsequently so appreciative of, language?

But don't even get me started on the halfhearted use of punctuation and the placement of "twice a day" so that it technically only modifies "expectorate." Of that, I disavow all knowledge.