Incredibly Yours

When did we start using incredible to mean “very very”?

As in:

“We spent an incredible day at the beach.”

“You are incredibly beautiful.”

 “She earns an incredible salary.”

Incredible means “unbelievable, unable to be believed”! What makes a trip to the beach unbelievable, especially if it’s a sunny day?

Personally speaking, I can believe how beautiful you are, but why would anyone say they could not believe it?

And large salaries are not only within the area of belief, but very satisfying to earn.

Come on, listen to yourself and the words you use. And believe them. I find it entirely incredible that U.S.-ers cannot grasp understanding of the language they grew up with.

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!

NOTE to Advertisers

If you have a reasonable question about grammar or punctuation, I’ll be delighted to provide my answer (not necessarily one that everyone will agree with), but perhaps one to help you.

Three requirements for an answer: 1) identify yourself,  2) ask, and 3) omit reference to your business.

—Grammar Anarchist

Can an Exception Prove Anything?

You’re familiar with the phrase: An exception proves the rule.

Maybe so, but the idea is confusing until you understand that the word prove can mean “test”. Or, as my American Heritage Dictionary states: to prove is “to determine the quality by testing".

“Not so!” says Sherlock Holmes through the pen of Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock claims that a rule cannot be questioned; it is sacrosanct, unchangeable, unwavering. Therefore, to claim there are “rules” to grammar is to claim there are no exceptions and… ergo… an exception must admit the falsity of the “rule”. Did I lose you? I didn’t lose Sherlock. He knows! And he's a Brit!

Anyone who has studied grammar quickly learns “the exceptions” that accompany almost every “rule”. The conclusion therefore must admit to preferring guidelines to rules.

You’ll find all the guidelines you need in my book, The Anarchist’s Guide to Grammar — the best grammar book you’ll ever enjoy!

Magifantastical Adjectives

I’m a big fan of Darby Conley, whose characters in his comic strip “Get Fuzzy” mangle the language regularly. He gets his cat to play with words like my daughter’s cat plays with a ball of yarn. When Cat’s owner chastises him, Cat calls him a rude luddite — “a ruddite”. Then adds that his owner is dim and stupid — “dimpid”, as well as ugly and annoying — “ugloying”. Don’t you love it? 

And when one of my writer friends turned out a book that was both magical and fantastic, I had to let her know her work is “magifantastical”. So there! Who says you can’t make up new words.

BTW, a question mark at the end of a sentence usually is asking for an answer. A question with a period at the end is called “rhetorical” because it does not require an answer.

 Ain’t grammar fun!

Where’s the Camera?

I’m here, Mr. Demille, for my closeups! The Anarachist's Guide to Grammar is receiving great reviews and more notice than I expected. However much I am proud of this book — the best grammar book you’ll ever need — I wasn’t that sure that anyone was reading much grammar lately.

The U.S. language is different from all those other “Englisher” languages out there.  Don’t even call it “American” (There are too many other Americans — everyone from Canadian through Mexican and Guatamalan to Argentinian and Chilean). We’re special!

If we take pride in our country, we ought also to pride ourselves on our language. Yes, it’s different.
It’s free, it’s flexible, it’s original, it’s creative. But most of all it belongs to the U.S. and the U.S. alone! Don’t ever forget that.

Show your pride in your respect for all things grammary!

Misplacing “Either”

“I tend to lose either my keys or my glasses” indicates a tendency to lose things. This sentence has one verb (lose) and two objects (keys and glasses)

“I tend to either lose my keys or my glasses or misplace them” indicates a tendency to sometimes lose things or sometimes misplace them. This sentence has two verbs (lose and misplace) and one object (them).

Here is an example of the need to know your verb from your object. Notice where the adjective either is placed (before the verb or before the object(s)). Got it?

Inhuman or Inhumane?

The news is filled with the use of these terms, and sometimes they are mis-used. Honestly, would you rather be “inhuman” or “inhumane”?

Inhuman is more dastardly than inhumane. One who is “inhuman” is cruel beyond the scope of being a human being. Whacking a mole over the head several times to kill it would be considered inhuman behavior.

If you are “inhumane”, you are being accused of being unsympathetic, lacking the ability to be compassionate or kind (much like many human beings). Telling a mole’s offspring that you just whacked their parent would be inhumane.

See the difference? Now stop whacking that poor mole!

“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.

Myriad Questions or a Myriad of Questions

How do you use the word “myriad”? As a noun or an adjective? The snobby grammarian purists (and poets) insist on using it as an adjective; as in: They ask myriad questions. or Myriad participants attended the conference.

Then there are the pure grammarians — my kind of anarchy grammarians who use language to suit them. They readily accept: They ask a myriad of questions. or A myriad of participants attended the conference.

What’s right? you ask, forgetting that we anarchists do not recognize the words right and wrong. Here’s another opportunity to make your choice the prime factor. Which do you like best?  Until the 1800s, myriad was used in English as a noun. Then along came a poet named Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Now you can blame the confusion on Coleridge and his “Hymn to the Earth,” in which he included the lines:

O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention:
Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre!
Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith
Myriad myriads of lives teem’d forth from the mighty embracement.

 So now it’s up to you. Both uses are acceptable. But you wouldn’t stoop to playing the snooty card… would you? Or do thou strovest to flee?