Category Archives: All Things Wordish

grammar, punctuation, usage, spelling, speech

May 3, 2012 · 7:55 am

Sign here

I’ve hit the mother lode (note, not mother load) of mementos.

My husband has been cleaning out our attic, and my box of collected treasures has emerged from the clutter. I’ve scooped out just the first layer, so let’s call this post the first in a series. There are sure to be more.

In this tranche were all those charms I thought I’d lost, some religious relics, including my First Holy Communion book, an Immaculate Conception medal and an honorable mention certificate from Saint Dominic’s Catholic School in Shaker Heights, Ohio. There were a few old pictures, lots of cards and letters and my photo album from summer semester in Spain.

My favorite relic to be unearthed was an autograph book I got as a souvenir of Disneyland when my father took me there in 1969. I scored no celebrity autographs, unless you count that of the five-year-old daughter of the TV comedy writer with whom we stayed in L.A.

I didn’t wear a watch on that trip. I do remember asking my Dad what time it was about every 10 minutes. When I let him sign the first page of my autograph book, he wrote, “It’s twenty after ten.”

My Uncle Henry made note that he signed it on the weekend man first walked on the moon—which had nothing to do with the poem he penned:

Saint Monica, Saint Bernadette,
Her patron saints, don’t give up yet,
For though you’ve seen the demon’s taint,
You’ve seen the promise of a saint.
Imp or angel, bad or bonnie,
In equal portion, that’s our Monnie.

The other pages hold what we all know as autograph book rhymes. Things like:

Don’t worry if your pay is small, and if your jobs are few.
Remember that the mighty oak was once a nut like you.

Remember the girl in the city. Remember the girl in the town.
Remember the girl who ruined your book by writing upside down.

See you in the ocean, see you in the sea.
See you in the bathtub. Oops, pardon me.

When you’re in heaven and it gets hot,
Pepsi-cola hits the spot.

When you get married and live in a hut,
Send me a picture of your first little nut.

When you get married and you have twins
Don’t come to me for safety pins.

It tickles me and makes me laugh
To think you want my autograph.

Never kiss by the garden gate
Because love is blind but the neighbors ain’t.

When I turned 50, my father gave me his mother’s autograph book, which is dated 1927 — 42 years before I had christened mine.

Allow me to share a few ditties from my grandmother’s crackled pages:

Lock up thy heart, keep safe the key,
Forget me not, til I do thee.

I wish I were a bunny with a little tail of fluff.
I’d climb upon your bureau and be your powder puff.

Some write for money, some write for fame,
But I write for the honor of signing just my name.

Down by the river there lies a rock,
And on it is printed, “Forget me not.”

If you get married and live upstairs,
For heaven’s sake, don’t put on airs.

It’s now 43 years after Disneyland and this place is my autograph book. Won’t you please sign it?

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April 28, 2012 · 9:17 am

Losing it

Humorist Dave Barry once said of memory loss, the nouns are the first to go.

You know the feeling. You’re deep in conversation and, mid-sentence, you can’t remember the name of a simple object or person’s name. I once worked myself into a panicked froth when it took me two hours to remember Roy Orbison. I knew the face. I knew the music—every lyric to every song. Just couldn’t retrieve the man’s name.

I’m here to tell you, officially, that my memory loss has advanced beyond nouns and into adjectives.

We were having dinner last night with some friends.

One was sharing her frustration with having two parents with Alzheimer’s Disease. Around the table, we knew too many people who had suffered from the awful disease and had far too many friends caring for loved ones with dementia. We talked about Alzheimer’s specifically and dementia in general and pondered how memory loss has become so prevalent.

Someone questioned whether dementia truly is an epidemic, or that we’re just hearing more about it. I posited that perhaps we are more aware because there are large facilities that now house dementia patients, whereas in prior generations, a doddering grandparent simply lived with his or her family, blending into the background of everyday life.

One of our dinner guests observed that even the term dementia seemed to be relatively recent. Back when Granny lived with her kids and grandkids, no one referred to Alzheimer’s or memory loss. There was another word.

Yes, there was another word. But what in the world was it?

Around the table, we all tried to remember. How did we refer to old people who had lost their memories? What was that less politically correct, more descriptively exact, word that we no longer use?

The conversation became uncomfortable. No one could remember this simple adjective.

I told our friend, “Stop trying to remember. It’ll come to you eventually. But when you do remember, even at 3 o’clock in the morning, call me. I’ll be up anyway with age-related insomnia.”

Shortly after our friends pulled out of the driveway, our phone rang. I answered.

“Hello?”

“Senile!”

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April 27, 2012 · 8:10 am

Don’t panic

Language has a way of enticing even the smartest of speakers to succumb to sloppiness, prompting misuses to spin out of control. Inspired by one too many examples, I offer today’s friendly reminder.

A rule of thumb:

Hilarious – good.
Hysterical – bad.

Perhaps that’s oversimplifying things a bit, but it serves as a helpful reminder that each word has its own distinctive meaning.

With common misuse, the distinction has grown more subtle.

“Hysterical” and “hilarious” are not interchangeable. Yes, online dictionaries have added one as a synonym of the other in recent times, but I’m not buying it.

As a matter of instruction, “hysterical” means to be in emotional shock. Some of its most common synonyms include: irrational, panic-stricken, jumpy, nervous and anxious.

People often describe movies or books or television shows or comedians as hysterical; therein lies the danger.

I suppose it could be accurate to describe a movie as hysterical. That is, if hysteria is a predominant theme. Theoretically, Titanic could be called hysterical, but it certainly is not hilarious.

One might call a comedian hysterical. He might be funny, hilarious, in fact, but is he shrieking uncontrollably? Ben Stein, for example, can be hilarious, but he is never hysterical.

When something is extremely funny, it is hilarious. Full of hilarity. When a person is extremely funny, she is hilarious. If she is having a hissy fit, she is hysterical. Remember, hissy derives from hysteria.

I could say that I found something so hilarious that I became hysterical. But it is I who was hysterical, not the thing that I found hilarious.

There’s the lesson for today. Your homework: Keep an ear out for one week and report back on how often you hear hysterical misused. Extra credit: Correct the offenders and hope they take it in good spirit and don’t become hysterical.

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March 10, 2012 · 9:32 am

Drawl come back now

Having written a fair number of executive briefing books in my career, it’s hard for me to resist drafting briefing notes for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney as he faces important primaries in the South in a few days.

I trust he has taken a regimen of prophylactic Mylanta to secure his sensitive system from the plattersful of barbeque and hush puppies he’ll gobble along the campaign trails of Mississippi and Alabama this weekend.

He has already bragged about eating “a biscuit” and liking grits, believing this will endear him to Dixie delegates he seeks. At least he used grits, plural, after having professed his love of “sport” in Daytona, at the risk of defeating the purpose of yukking it up with the NASCAR crowd.

Romney boasted about having mastered “y’all,” as if contracting a second person plural were colloquial rocket science.

I informally canvassed cohorts in the southern states to learn what they might contribute to my fictitious briefing book. What terms must the candidate master to prove he’s southern-savvy?

One person cautioned Mr. Romney to stay far away from the Paula Deen method. Simply inserting extra syllables is only patronizing and insulting.

Some suggestions came in under what I believe is an erroneous assumption that good grammar doesn’t matter in the South:  “We’re gonna win this thing, Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” and “I need me some red eye gravy or my grits just ain’t right.” If Candidate Romney buys into these in next week’s primary elections, he might as well not come back for the general.

Some submissions I received were right out of the stereotypical Paula Deen phrase book: “I’m plumb tuckered out,” “I’m fixin’ too go down the road a piece” and “Oh my Lorward.” Most came from people who might delight in poor ol’ Mr. Romney’s taking bad advice.

When I sent out my solicitations yesterday, I was hoping to get a more esoteric glossary, containing a few of the words and phrases—actual, not stereotypical—I had to learn upon marrying into a Southern family. This page from my briefing book will help the southern gentleman from Massachusetts fit in with voters in Miss-sippi and Alabama without a single y’all.

Romney-speak:  I beg your pardon?
Translation:  Do what?

Romney:  When you enter the voting booth on Tuesday, be sure to press the button for Mitt Romney.
Translation:  When you enter the voting booth on Tuesday, be sure to mash the button for Mitt Romney.

Romney:  It appears that would be so.
Translation:  I reckon.

Romney:  In the debates, the other candidates and I took turns addressing the issues.
Translation:  In the debates, the other candidates and I took time about addressing the issues.

Romney:  I’m spending my own money, so put your checkbook away.
Translation:  I’m spending my own money, so put your checkbook up.

Ten thousand bucks you can come up with more?

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March 6, 2012 · 8:20 am

Kids spell the darndest things

It seems my parents and I sometimes lived on different planes, because I’ve told a number of stories here that neither one remembers. I’m betting this will be another.

Either way, a childhood memory sprung to mind yesterday when a friend shared that she overheard her little tike singing in the bathtub: “I’m sexy and I know it.”

She wondered if her child knew what exactly he was claiming and how she would respond if asked to define “sexy.”

Immediately I buckled myself in and zoomed back to 1967, when I used to do my second grade homework in my father’s office in our basement.

One day my parents took me down to the office and asked me about some writing on the wall beside the desk. Printed in pencil, in a column, was an indiscernible word, in several different spellings, such as:

secksapeel
ceksepele
zexipeal
setsapile

I don’t remember why I worked this exercise of mine on plaster rather than paper; perhaps I planned, once I figured it out, to go back and erase it. But I didn’t. And I was busted.

Defending my devilish actions in my little Catholic school uniform, I pointed out that I was simply trying to figure out how to spell a word. When I told them what it was, their faces showed a mix of shock and stifled amusement. They asked me where I had heard this word and why I was interested. It was a television commercial for something this seven-year-old, not the target demographic, found appealing.

Thank Heaven they didn’t make me go to confession.

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February 18, 2012 · 1:29 pm

Venus and Mars

This one goes out to the guys, but gals, pay attention; this may help you too.

My husband has decided to clean out his side of the medicine cabinet. In an act of kindness and generosity, today he offered to yield some real estate to me. He knows women need more space, but I know he wonders why.

Olay Micro Sculpting Serum

I’ve heard many a man bemoan the fact that his missus takes up disproportionate space in the bathroom and bedroom with her mysterious self maintenance gear. I know couples who have engaged in warfare, usually waged by an encroached-upon mister trying to reclaim his rightful flossing zone.

I maintain that the root of the decades-old gender conflict is a simple lack of understanding. And–unlike the self tanner we chickadees apply at the first sign of spring–it’s natural.

Is there any wonder? A random pluck from my own shelf surfaced “Night Recovery Cream.”

Perhaps men wouldn’t shake their heads and their fists at our products if they understood—in their terms—what each one was for.

For the educational benefit of the males, I’ve contemplated the contents of the Venus side of the cabinet—or tool shed—and tried to put them into a context a Martian might better appreciate:

pore minimizer spackle
foundation paint and primer in one
exfoliator sander
self tanner stain
hydrating body gloss shellac
lip liner painting tape
anti-gravity lift cream ceiling paint
Nair® weed killer
tweezers weed whacker
PedEgg™ lathe
foot smoothing cream foot smoothing cream. Would it kill you to use it?

Would anyone care to put on an addition?

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February 6, 2012 · 8:08 am

The whole truth

As the Super Bowl approached, someone suggested I write about the expression “the whole nine yards.” Why nine, she asked, when the football field is marked in 10-yard increments?

As with many word matters I research, there isn’t clear consensus on any one theory. Various opinion-holders each claim resolutely that the origin of “the whole nine yards” pertains to rounds of ammunition, the volume of a cement mixer, the cubic footage of a grave, the length of a bridal train or nine shipyards used during World War II. The one I’m going with referred to the Long Jump field event. So there we are; it’s not about football at all.

This got me thinking, though, about the whole ball of wax. No clear consensus on that one either. As best I can tell, “the whole ball of wax” has something to do with the way in which inherited property was once identified. Or it derives from “bailiwick.” You choose.

How about the whole enchilada? The whole shooting match? The whole shebang? What is a shebang, anyway?

I recently heard someone say, “That’s a whole different ball of wax.” Nothing like a good mixed metaphor to take us back to the ball game.

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February 4, 2012 · 9:38 am

A mighty near mis-fire

It’s good thing I stopped myself before I acted irrationally and fired off another letter to the editor of The Washington Post. Instead I thought twice and had a good laugh at my own expense.

You might remember that some time back I wrote the Post, highlighting a grammatical error in one of the paper’s editorial page headlines. They didn’t find my letter fit to print and I didn’t hear a thing from anyone except my faithful blog readers. (I still owe Craig Dees a prize for best suggested follow-up).

Let me set the stage.

The summer before I started college, I worked in Georgetown with a woman from Charlotte. I’m not sure I’d ever met anyone from North Carolina before, and I found charm in her manner of speech.

Once, in conversation, a phrase she used caught my ear:  “Debbie said I might could borrow her car.” Might could.

I understood that what she meant was might be able to, although I actually thought she was joking when she said it.

As you know, I’ve since met dozens, if not hundreds, of North Carolinians, and have come to enjoy their colloquialisms. Might could is one I still hear a lot but, as many Southerners as I know, I don’t recall ever hearing it from anyone from South Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia or Arkansas or Alabama. No matter.

You’ll find no shortage of online dialogue about might could if you’re inclined to look it up. I learned there’s a Southern rock band called Might Could. Cute.

I also learned that might could is a “double modal,” and is as frowned upon as a double negative. Even so, the phrase, while structurally incorrect, has gained acceptance as a mere regional lapse. Frankly, I’ve heard it so many times over the past three decades that, when I do, only one hair stands up on the back of my neck.

But to read it in the paper, that’s a whole different grind of grits.

Yesterday the Post ran an opinion piece by leading foreign policy expert Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His piece was entitled: “Powering down: A decline in U.S. military might could upend the world order.”

I was outraged. Shame on Dr. Kagan for this sloppy title, if he indeed wrote it, and shame on the Post if they did. I drafted an angry letter in my head as I re-read the header over and over.

Then I realized – that the subject in the sentence was “a decline in military might.” Might. As in strength. Force. Power. The decline [in military might] could upend the world order. Duh.

I was reading it as though a decline in U.S. military might could upend the world order.

Maybe now I can calm down and read Dr. Kagan’s piece.

And maybe my readers from the lovely Tar Heel state, bless their hearts, might could forgive me for the snap.

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January 12, 2012 · 7:46 am

Sole food

Does this chilly January morning find Jack Frost nibbling your nose?

While watching news coverage of the New Hampshire primary over breakfast yesterday, I gagged on a banner caption that read:

Paul nibbling Romney’s heels

Once I got the unseemly visual out of my drowsy head, my next reaction was to laugh at the mixed-up phrase. In the race for the GOP nomination, Ron Paul is, figuratively, of course, “nipping at” Mitt Romney’s heels, not nibbling them.

Before I sent an e-dig to a friend who I knew was working on location for the station I was watching, I thought I’d better dig a little deeper. It seems the only error the station made was not putting the nibbling reference in quotes–and perhaps omitting “at.” Paul indeed said in a post-primary speech, “We’re nibbling at his heels.” (Again with the “we.”)

This might be the first time a candidate put his opponent’s foot in his mouth.

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January 6, 2012 · 8:36 am

Resolved

As we near the end first week of January, I’m proud to report that I’ve kept all of my New Year’s resolutions. Or I would have if I had made any. Perhaps I’ve kept yours.

I don’t typically make New Year’s resolutions. Or perhaps I should say, I don’t make typical New Year’s resolutions.

Let it be noted that this week, I took a Zumba class, attended a Weight Watchers meeting, started a new book (reading, not writing), cleaned out and reorganized my refrigerator and tried to donate a pint of blood. Tried, because I apparently didn’t have enough iron for the Red Cross. I then went out and bought a gargantuan head of kale.

If I had resolved to exercise, lose weight, read more, get organized, do for humanity and buy healthful foods, I’d have aced it this week. One down, fifty-one to go.

Notice I said, “healthful,” not “healthy.” Things are healthful. People are healthy. Kale, anyone?

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