Comical, Literate Grammar — Oh My!

Sometimes pure genius shows up in strange places. I look for — and find — it in the daily comic pages and my favorite grammar blogs. Every once in a while I trip over it on the Internet. As I warn my writer students, NEVER publish your work without your name and, if appropriate, a copyright symbol. Otherwise, your progeny becomes public domain, which means anyone can use it and you receive no credit. Tsk! Tsk! All that thinking and all that work and… no credit!

One such brainchild has appeared with no credits. Titled “Literary Devices”, it includes eight panels of clever drawings that illustrate these mechanical (over-used) devices. They are:

Random Analogy Generator
Foreshadow Puppet
The Great Golden Hammer of Hyperbole
Onomatopoeia Engine (puff! pop! clank! Whirrrr…)
Advance-Alert Alliteration Alarm (ahem!)
Personification Press
Irony Board
and my favorite: Metaphor Mixer and Simile Stretcher

You could almost make a song out of that last one! Somebody somewhere has a very fertile — and syntaxic, grammatic, linguistic, literatic — comic mind!

What Attracts You to People?

That’s the question posed in a recent survey among people of all ages, genders, sizes, races, and places in life:

What is it about someone that makes you want to know them better, do business with them, date them…

The first three answers are interesting. But it’s the third one that fascinates me the most — and should interest you too.

First answer: a SMILE.

“When someone has a sincere smile, I’m attracted.”
“I consider a sweet smile worth a pile of gold.”
“A beautiful smile reflects a beautiful soul, a positive thinker, someone like me.” 

Second answer: a TWINKLE in the eyes.

“I love to see twinkling eyes; that says a person is alive and well inside.”
“The eyes give you away. A twinkle can’t be phoney.”
“If I see a twinkle in his eye, I know this guy is excited about life and maybe me.”

Ah, my friends, now comes the third answer. (Pause to take deep breath!)

Number 3: good GRAMMAR! You betcha!

“When somebody uses a double negative, I flinch. Doesn’t she care about the way she sounds?”
“Oh, I have so many peeves about bad grammar, but the worst is between you and I — like hearing fingernails on a chalkboard.”
“Bad grammar screams uneducated, sloppy, messy, dumb!”

Whether you come across bad grammar in speaking or in writing, how do you feel about the person behind the words?

Want to know my unfavorite faux pas that exposes a careless word user? I see it often in emails, which I usually disregard because the writer is moving fast. But still, wouldn’t they think enough of themselves to capitalize their own pronoun — “I”?

Okay, so English is the only language that capitalizes the word; but not capitalizing it sends a message — to many like me — that you don’t care enough about yourself to capitalize “I”. Chew on that tidbit for a moment.

Grammar reflects your personality, your brain traits, and your self respect. Be careful how you use it!

Grammar In Your Pocket — just for you!

Heave a sigh of relief. Grammar help is on the way! Now you can find instant answers to your grammar questions by downloading any one of the 24 parts to the new series: Grammar In Your Pocket. Then pack away the information on your pocket electronics to keep it handy.

The series is available on www.kindle.com where you can search by subject. Order on amazon.com. There are 24 of them and each costs only 99¢. What? You say you don't own a Kindle? You can order a physical reader (so you can read in bed or on a bus), or you can download a Kindle reader FREE to your computer. Check it out! These are the subjects you can choose:

Parts of Speech: 
Introduction • Nouns • Pronouns • Verbs • Adjectives • Adverbs • Phrases & Clauses • Conjunctions • Prepositions • Articles & Interjections

Punctuation: 
Commas • Colons, Semicolons, & Periods • Parentheses, Brackets, Quotation Marks  •  Question Marks & Exclamation Points • More Dots & Dashes

Help For Writers: 
Putting It Together • Words • Sentences • Paragraphs • Spelling • Numbers • Unbiased Language • Writing Style • Grammar Glitches

You’ll never have to worry again about whether to say “between you and I” or “between you and me”. Plus, your spelling will improve enough for you to win any spelling bee!

Pick up one or more titles at a time until you have the entire series. And you’ll never need another grammar book to keep your writing and grammar usage impressive. Your friends, family, bosses, and business associates will swoon to hear you referring confidently to nouns, adjectives, semicolons, writing style, and even participles with confidence. And always keeping things between you and me!

Bizzy, Bizzy, Bizzy

Do you agree? Too much to do in so little time! I’ve learned that you can do only so much; then you have to take a breather; go for a walk; go to a movie, pick up groceries; plant a garden; take pictures of your grandkids…

So I took a breather. And what did I do? Worked on a new project! (Of course I don't listen to my inner critic. Who does!)

A primary project has been put on hold… again. I’m putting together a series of short grammar articles for eBooks, called Grammar In Your Pocket. Each article focuses on a part of speech or punctuation or writing problem. Each is short. Each tells you all you need to know — or want to — about that subject. Plans are to put out one article a week. If you download the complete set, you’ll have everything you need to know about grammar, right in your pocket, easy to carry around with you and access as you need it.

Let’s say you’re wondering about a word to capitalize. Open the series marked “Nouns” and go to the “Capitalize” section and… there you have it.

My problem? I’m learning to fine-tune work for easy reading on electronic readers. Fun and confusing. With a good wind and a lot of luck, you can look for the Introductory article next week (before Easter) and every week thereafter.

OK, is it okay to O.K. an okay sentence including o.k.?

Next Sunday, March 23, 2014, has been named “OK Day”, celebrating the 175th anniversary of the appearance of this innovative word/sound/phrase. On March 23, 1839 okay appeared for the first time in a U.S. newspaper — The Boston Morning Post. It was a gimmick, folks — part of an abbreviation craze in this new country of ours. But, oh how it stuck!

How many ways can you write it? OK?
How often do you use the term okay?
Do you realize that this innocuous little term — “okay” — not only has uses in several parts of speech, but it also has a history? Who knew?

Answer to Question #1: You can write this term in all caps, a combination of cap and lower case, as a four-letter word or a two-word abbreviation (with or without periods). All are OKAY, OK, O.K., okay, ok, o.k.

Answer to Question #2: You have probably used the term more than 175 times today if you are working or socializing among other people, and possibly 25 to 30 times if you’re working alone at your computer and phone.

Answer to Question #3: Oh yes! You can use “okay” as a noun (You have my okay), a verb (Please okay this agreement today), an adjective (You’re an okay kind of person), and adverb (Is your computer running okay?), and an expletive/interjection (Okay!).

As for history, don’t believe those who try to tell you it originated with President Martin VanBuren, who is reputed to have referred to his connections with Old Kinderhook! Didn’t happen! Or with President Wilson, who reputedly repeated a term he had heard. Okay may  have come from the Greek ola kala, meaning “all good” or the Choctaw word, “okeh”, a sound-alike. After okay became used publicly in 1839, it is believed to have been immortalized in an unnamed slang dictionary in 1864. Probably not true.

And no! There's no way it stands for Oklahoma, as fine a state as OK may be.

Celebrate Our Day!

Today, Tuesday, March 4, is National Grammar Day. How do you celebrate? Take a grammar to lunch? Buy your grammar a dozen roses? Or just watch your mouth. Not easy in this day of purple prose — f-words and s-words and xyz-words. Take a hint from our classy forebears whose words remain on our lips for decades — nay centuries — long after the speakers are gone. They chose words that cut, struck chords, made points, all without reverting to the profanity of the day (or was it the profanity of the day?).

Notice where profane words originate? In the bathroom (considered childish obsession with the digestive system), in the bedroom (sexual activity has long bothered Americans), in humor (making fun of others), and in ways to diminish the character of another.

Where our grandparents got by using such expletives as gosh darn, drat, egad, yikes, gee, and golly, their grandchildren easily display potty mouths — most likely for shock value to adults, but more for the easy of finding a pet cuss word and using it as often as possible. The cure? Find a pet cuss word that only you define as “profanity”.

U.S.-English is rich with wonderful words that would send an enemy or opponent scurrying off to find a dictionary. Consider: scurrilous, blasphemous, file, coprophagous, cloacal, ribald, execrable, ominous, minacious, maledictory, damnatory, desiccative.

On this holiest of holy days, watch your language. 

1) Keep your dictionary tucked inside your iPod or your pocket.
2) Find a mobile copy of a thesaurus.
3) Delight in coming up with dissident, dissentient, dissipated, disassociated word that will blow away the need for bathroom or bedroom attempts at humor.

When you stare your opponent in the eye, smile, and describe that person in extraordinary words, you'll feel so much better.

Be a proud grammar user.

 

Keep Your Thoughts to Yourself

Someone says this phrase every three seconds, somewhere in the world: “I was thinking to myself…” When I hear it, my innards quake, my teeth take on an edge, my toes curl, and my head goes dizzy.

Who else do you think to? I must ask. When you think, it’s completely your secret. Thinking occurs inside your head. When have you heard someone say, “I was thinking to Harry…” or “I was thinking to Mary…” or “I was thinking to you…”?

You have to ask why it seems necessary to add “to myself” to your thinking. Is this narcissism? a mental defect? a cry for help? Wha…???

Why Grammar?

As a grammarian and word person, I am constantly asked why grammar is important. “Why do I have to understand what words go together and which ones don’t?” “What's the difference if I use double negatives?” “Why do we even have apostrophes — much less, how do we use them?”

Having order to the way we communicate by mouth and writing is as important as having some order to the way we communicate via the Internet and email. Sure there are different systems, or styles. But computer-ese makes communication between computers — and therefore between people — possible. If your computer cannot talk to mine, we cannot get together on anything.

Grammar is like the coding in computers, in that knowing how it works makes it work better. Read a good book about language: The Anarchist’s Guide to Grammar, by Val Dumond, or The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker. I guarantee you’ll come away with more respect for the guidelines offered through the order of language.

No, it’s not British English or Australian English or Canadian English — not in the good old US of A! Which is why we in the U.S. have the most beautiful and flexible language in the world. Why? Because it is composed of all the other languages — with all their styles and systems in one room, together.

Bless us all, everyone, for our language and knowing how to order it!

“Adult Child” is an Oxymoron

No, I’m not dissing my “grownup children” (another oxymoron); I’m ranting about the lack of an appropriate word. The English language apparently has no word to designate an offspring who has become an adult. Can anyone… anyone… PU-LEEZE… come up with a good word?

Children do grow up (at least in height and age). They don’t remain children forever. I personally dislike the word kid, which my mother eschewed as meaning “goat child”. At least kid is better than the alternatives. Words like progeny, heir, descendant sound a bit pretentious with over-expectations.

My suggestions (and certainly you can do better):

kidoffspring  (kid and offspring)
kideir (kid and heir, get it?)
grownperson (lacks the family connection)
young adult child (kinda long and reflects the “child” thing)
growki (grown kid, but it’s closer)
*pretendependent (tongue-in-cheek “pretend independent” for 18-plus-kids who return home)
*chult (this one comes closest, marrying “child” and “adult”)

*these last two came from the online Urban Dictionary.

Verb Degrees

Choose a verb, any verb, preferably  a benign one and its extreme opposite (stroll --> race; tap --> pound; sip --> gulp). Insert other verbs that will take the benign verb, by small increments, to the extreme at the other end.

Here's my challenge: Move from “whisper” --> “screech”.

 My attempt: whisper, murmur, hum, speak, converse, enunciate, emphasize, shout, yell, scream, shriek, cry, screech…

Can you insert some other verbs in between?

How Many Things Can You Break?

You can break a rule, a glass, an egg, a heart, a leg, your neck, a promise, a record, the bank at Monte Carlo, a $20 bill, the ice…

You can break in, out, up, down, into, even, wind, curfew, step, silence…

You can break up a fight, into the light, in new shoes, in a new assistant, out of jail, out of the blues, down in the rain, up in pain, into a bank, into song, into a sweat…

You can take a break, make a break, fake a break, shake a break (or is that shake and break?)…

Breaker! Breaker! Break!

Who walked into a bar?

 Two adverbs walked into a bar too slowly.
 An anagram walked into a bra.
A simile walked into a bar like a lion.
A reflexive pronoun walked itself into a bar.

Fun, huh! Find more of these with the Grammar Geeks group on LinkedIn (you have to be a member of both LinkedIn and the group). Buat thet oh the laughs we geeks have in that bar!

Where do you hold your phone?

Did you know that the grammar part of your brain lies just about your left ear? That’s where the work is done in the realms of reading, writing, and speaking. Do you generally hold your phone to your left ear? Hmmmm!