Latest Articles by Sarah Canice Funke
...on the news, a story appeared with the tag line: "dolphin helps shark attack victim." I was confused because everyone was saying good things about this dolphin. Then I realized that "shark attack" was a modifying phrase and the headline *should* have been "dolphin helps victim of shark attack" in order to avoid confusion...
Also in the news: a school bans hugging for liability issues. Great, watch our society wither away from lack of physical contact.
I love blurring use/mention distinctions. Such as in the following exchange:
SF: ...with formidable finasse.
SB: ah. that is a big word.
SF: that is only four letters long. not very big at all.
SB: I know. I thought it was.
SF: it is a big word for you. you haven't progressed past it.
SB: yep. well I can pick up the meaning of it. but after that it's hard.
SF: it's a little more complicated. because it's a combination of words.
SB: yeah. I know
There are days when words strike me as too funny to use.
"I have always had a deep and abiding love for the English language, from early on in life. I've always loved the flirtatious tango of consonants and vowels,the sturdy dependability of nouns and the capricious whimsy of verbs, the strutting pageantry of the adjective, and the flitting evanescence of the adverb, all kept safe and orderly by those reliable little policemen, punctuation marks." -- Dennis Miller
Mr. Howard alerted me to Grammar Girl. I dream of a secret identity, an alter ego who spends her nights rescuing beleaguered apostrophes and misplaced modifiers. Championing the cause of oppressed hyphens everywhere, I dash to the [parentheses-or-brackets?] mobile whenever I hear an improperly punctuated cry of distress.
As Rosencrantz (or was it Guildenstern?) said: Words. They're all we've got to go on.
The compli-sult is an epithet that was originally derogatory now used in an affectionate way in order to convey respect, admiration, or general fraternal love. Examples include mo-fo, pimp, and even N**ger.
A portmanteau of compliment and insult.
~The Funke Urban Dictionary.
Everyone is concerned with breaking things off, leaving, and pretty much just ending it all. Luke wants poetry to enter into the common parlance again so that a mere good-bye becomes re-imbued with its full meaning and Linnea just wants a simple professional-yet-witty email sign-off.
And in response to someone who said they like to use "cheers" as a conversational ending (for email), I just replied:
"But everyone uses "cheers." And after a while you start sounding like a laundry detergent..."
I suppose such a farewell would leave everyone with a clean slate...
Luke is my very best semantical friend right now, because he found the word that I was searching for a very long time ago, the word I had failed to rediscover...until tonight.
The slippery term that cost me so much sleep?
Autological. I have wanted to use that word so many times since I read about the concept about two years ago in Oxford. But the term had escaped my mind and the Bodleian was no longer available to my perusal. How handy it is to have friends who currently study linguistics/philosophy of language and thus solve all my semantic problems for me.
Merry Christmas Eve eve. I've always liked that phrase. Maybe because it meant Christmas was almost here. Or maybe because I enjoyed the illusion of stuttering. But now the phrase takes on new meaning, thanks to Linnea's linguistics studies on the repeated compound. So now I wonder if Christmas Eve eve is really just an emphatic expression of anticipation. A single "eve" implies that the important event is coming in the morning, but a double "eve" suggests that what comes deserves extra attention.
Or maybe I am making this all up. I have been known to do that before. But it sounds good to me.
...and the current weather forecast for Colorado...
I don't know if anyone else was ever nerdy enough in their younger days to actually check Bartlett's Familiar Quotations out of the library, but I certainly enjoyed pouring over the words that had been said by so many others. And now I find an online version. However, the nerdy appeal of browsing is lost, much as one loses interest in the dictionary when one no longer has the opportunity of happening across new words unexpectedly...
Wiki: tr. v. To search for information in the online collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Ex. "I don't know where the rain in Spain falls; let me wiki it." See related at google.
And it appears that people are making up words all over.
"New words are busting out all over..." (A minor modification of a song from...Carousel I think. Or maybe State Fair.)
I have determined that while some people enjoy using etc. in order to avoid completing a thought, I really like using the phrase "and that's all I have to say about that" to accomplish much the same sense of finality while implying that there could be more if only I so cared to divulge it. But etc. is truly a much more efficient way to be mentally lazy.
And...I am not so insanely stressed as I was yesterday and this morning. Hooray for the weekend coming up. Concert tonight with my Sarah twin. Read her blog. It's clever.
...because when you write it down, you just can't remember ever having seen those letters in that order before?, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
And so I wonder: is it "gray" or "grey"?
They both look right to me.
They both look wrong to me.
Wikipedia tells me both are correct.
But I hate having to choose. Such a burden is placed on the writer when spelling is made a matter of personal choice. There are no omens.
Laura Kaufmann has been discussing possible band names. Of course, being an English major, she was partial to Dangling Modifers. I guess potential song titles could include "I Dreamt of You in the Woodlands, Darling" or "Meet Me Where We Used to Roam (On Sunday Afternoon)."
I kind of like The Split Infinitives myself. I'll write a song called "To Never Roller-Blade Again" or "Don't Forget to Always Clean Your Room."
My title today comes from "It Takes a Woman," Hello, Dolly. It, too, demonstrates that even popular musicals are apt to sometimes boast a split infinitive, too.
I was listening to the My Fair Lady soundtrack and was reminded of how true the class distinctions based on intonation/accent were in England, even as of last April when I spent a term in Oxford. I remember thinking at the time that the English certainly had a better ear for distinguishing finer points of accent...perhaps not to Henry Higgins' specificity, but still much more precise than I would ever imagine to be necessary...
Henry: Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter,
Condemned by every syllable she ever uttered.
By law she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.
Eliza: Aaoooww!
Henry (imitating her): Aaoooww!
Heaven's! What a noise!
This is what the British population,
Calls an elementary education.
Pickering: Oh, Counsel, I think you picked a poor example.
Henry: Did I?
Hear them down in Soho square,
Dropping "h's" everywhere.
Speaking English anyway they like.
You sir, did you go to school?
Man: Wadaya tike me for, a fool?
Henry: No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction, by now,
Should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir,
Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too!
Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse,
Hear a Cornishman converse,
I'd rather hear a choir singing flat.
Chickens cackling in a barn Just like this one!
Eliza: Garn!
Henry: I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that?
It's "Aoooow" and "Garn" that keep her in her place.
Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.
An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other
Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their
Greek. In France every Frenchman knows
his language from "A" to "Zed"
The French never care what they do, actually,
as long as they pronounce in properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the English,
Why can't the English learn to speak?
I've joined the ranks of AIM users. Email me if you want my screen name.
Because I don't believe in collecting keychains.
"...And I do solemnly swear NEVER to use the acronym lol, nor shall I EVER reduce the second person pronoun to the single letter u."
(This statement is one that a secret member of the Hyphen Order in the GrammarNazi Brethren has to sign before she can register for an AIM account. At least, she needs to if she desires to sleep well at night. Without fear of having the Rules of Grammar squiggled all over her kneecaps with a permanent marker. Dangling modifers! Degeneration has started already!)
I am convinced that the numerical notation for fractions does not require an apostrophe. However, a friend of mine insists on using one. Thus, I ask all grammatically inclined persons to inform me: Should one write 9th or 9'th?
I may not know what I am saying, but I can certainly say it correct...ly...
Your English Skills: |
| Grammar: 100% |
| Punctuation: 100% |
| Spelling: 80% |
| Vocabulary: 60% |
to all those ungrateful for my crusade against misused punctuation and mangled grammar you must try to imagine a world however hard it may be in which no one uses any marks of clarity preservation of such a magnitude of obscurity i can only shudder in anticipation especially as i see evidence of societal chaos already exhibited in email and even published material apathy is killing meaning but Derrida is dead opening the way for a return to an understanding that values rules and regulations as important in themselves oops i nearly inserted a period right their and why cant a rage as great as mine be heard hear nevermind i shall be proved right when in future you must wade through unmarked jungles such as this and despair of ever coming out alive keep your homophones in there wright spot a misplaced one can cause more confusion an impossible situation you say well at the risk of commiting slippery slope fallacies i maintain that it is very possible the signs are already here what is the differ a nce my diatribe will make not much i sink into oblivion no one cares
I have just been called a Grammar Nazi. Why? Because of my zeal to preserve the English language in all of its beautiful clarity. Because of my devotion to "Eats, Shoots and Leaves," a merry little volume enumerating proper punctuation practices (my emphathy with the author is not abated even by the lack of a final comma in the title and her British habit of leaving final punctuation outside the closing quotation marks). I spotted apostrophe abuse and, rather than becoming a tacit accomplice to tragedy, I decided to make a difference and speak up for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Someone was liberally strewing apostrophes "where no apostrophe has ever gone before." Someone was sending out mass emails intended to firm up a Bible study meeting date, and I constructively pointed out that one does not need an apostrophe in the numerical hybrid "15th" or "8th" (as in "of January"). For this act of kindness, I was promptly labeled a Grammar Nazi. What would you have done in my place? Could you stare at phrases such as "the 15'th" or "the 8'th" and remain unmoved? Hard-hearted grammarphobes!
I replied that I am NOT a Grammar Nazi. Rather, I am merely a member of the GPA (Grammar Protection Association) and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Apostrophes)...Keep Our Grammar Beautiful for Our Children...We only have one language, so use it wisely...Periods are People, too...