Another "Know-It-All" questions the Grammer Genious

The renowned theoretical linguist Dr. Claude Kluckhorn, “The Crown Jewel of the Linguistics Department” at Big Bone Lick College in Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious, so called,

Your “blog” was recently brought to my attention by a graduate student whom I have been mentoring. Not meaning to be overly abrupt, I nevertheless feel compelled to inquire where, exactly, you get off, posing as any sort of resource for language knowledge, let alone as an “expert.” From a linguistic standpoint, the absurd responses you dole out to your correspondents are laughable, to say the least.

Allow me to put a simple question to you, as a test of your linguistic mettle: Do you hold with the opinion of Voyles as to the employment of inverted reconstruction using the data made available through the attested daughter languages in light of and at times in preference to the results of the comparative reconstruction undertaken to arrive at Proto-Indo-European? Or do you hold with Van Coetsem’s notion that the Germanic Parent Language encompasses both the Pre-Proto-Germanic stage of development preceding the First Germanic Sound Shift and that stage traditionally identified as Proto-Germanic up to the beginning of the Common Era?

I await your response with gleeful anticipation, you transparent mountebank.

- Signed, Full Professor Dr. Claude Kluckhorn, PhD, Chairman of the Linguistics Department, Big Bone Lick College, Big Bone Lick, Kentucky

Dear Claude, my man,

Could you say that again? I wasn’t listening. Ya dumbass.

- The Grammer Genious

What is the question?

Riley Carr, a Tech Sergeant aerial porter with the 456th Expeditionary Communications Squadron at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

We have a lot of time to talk here in Afghanistan, and we get into a lot of discussions and arguments in the hangar while we're waiting around, and today we were arguing about whether it is "kitty-corner," or "catty-corner." Please tell us the answer.

Signed, TSgt Carr

Dear Sergeant,

Is WHAT catty-corner or kitty-corner? Do you mean the Wawa? The Starbucks? I don't understand the question.

- Signed, the Grammer Genious

Go ahead, dumbell, "turn into the skid."

Mrs. Donna O’Toole of Joliet, Illinois, write:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Our daughter Sacajawea finished her high school driver education course a while ago and has been driving for a few months. They taught her in the course that if your car starts to skid you should always “turn into the skid,” or “turn in the direction of the skid.” They said it several times. I remember that they said the same thing to us when I took drivers education way back in the 80s, and I’ve heard it all my life but I haven’t paid much attention to it because it doesn’t make any sense.

Yesterday evening Sacajawea was driving back from Triple Trio practice in the snow. She was crossing the Jefferson Street bridge and the car started to skid, turning to the right. So following the guidance of her teachers she turned the wheel to the right, and she went off the bridge. The car turned over but landed on the river bank and luckily Sacajawea wasn’t hurt very badly but the Stratus is pretty bent up.

This morning my husband called Sacajawea’s driving teacher Mr. Feeney at the high school and asked why he had told her to do that. At first he laughed a nervous laugh, but then he admitted that he always told new drivers to do that because that’s what it says in the book, but that it had always seemed stupid to him, too. He has never “turned in the direction of the skid.”

So, is there something about English that we’re all not getting? What does “turn into the skid” mean?

-Signed, Mrs. Tecumseh J. O’Toole

Dear Mrs. O’Toole,

When your car is skidding, why would you turn in a way that would immediately and very obviously make the skid worse, just because somebody told you to? Only a stupid person would blindly follow instructions that are obviously wrong, especially when it involves the integrity of your Dodge Stratus.

Apparently, this “turn into the skid” thing is all the result of some misprint in the distant past (or maybe it was just a silly gag by some waggish joker) that has been mindlessly reprinted and repeated ever since by people with minimal intelligence and no common sense, despite the fact that it is patently loony and idiotic. 

The solution is for you to stop being such a complete sheep and to start thinking for yourself. It’s people like you that have voted our country into the toilet. No offense.

-- The Grammer Genious

PS. You probably also believed them when they said you should loosen a screw by "turning it to the left." When you loosen a screw, only the TOP edge moves to the left. The bottom edge moves to the RIGHT, stupid. No offense.

Bells on B/bobtail ring

Fred Brumit, a beer truck driver in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and a long-time tenor member of the Yuengling Brewery Employees Concert Choir, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Can you settle a big argument we’re having? Last night at the rehearsal for the upcoming Yuengling Brewery Choir Christmas Concert the singers all got into a real big argument about “bells on Bobtail ring”. We tenors are sure that of course it is talking about the horse, whose name is Bobtail. 

A bunch of the choir, mainly those bitches the altos, claimed that the phrase is referring to the bells on the bobbed tail of the horse. But if it meant that it would say “bells on THE [horse’s] bobbed tail ring….” wouldn’t it? Otherwise it would be like saying “Books on table are big” instead of “Books on THE table are big.” I kept trying to explain that and give examples, but those women just kept looking away from me and laughing at me and looking at each other and making faces and ignoring me and making fun of me and ridiculing me, and refusing to think about what I was trying to say to them. They made me completely embarrassed and humiliated, the fat old bitches.

They brought cookies to the rehearsal too – really good ones with icing -- but they wouldn’t let us tenors have any because we told them they were wrong. Also, they sing way too loud, too. Like fingernails on the blackboard.

I’m thinking of wearing my Groucho glasses with the attached nose and mustache to the concert, which is going to be on Public Access Channel next Wednesday, just to embarrass them and screw everything up. That’s how pissed off I am. It all sucks. They won't even listen. They think they're so smart.

Signed, Fred Brumit

Dear Fred,

Hey Fred, listen. I don’t want to hurt your feelings etcetera, but this “Christmas choir” thing is just so lame. It’s pathetic, man. Who gives a crap, honestly. No offense. Sing whatever you want. Wear your Groucho glasses. Nobody will notice, because nobody will come, and nobody will give a crap, and nobody will watch the sorry public access channel except for maybe a bunch of catatonic Alzheimers victims in the rest homes. That kind of local amateur choir crap is just horrible.

But hey I don’t want to discourage you, though, because I’m a very upbeat person! So, rock on, Yuengling Brewery Choir!!

- The Grammer Genious

The On-going Seltics/Keltics Argument

Ron Murch, a fantasy-football enthusiast and management trainee from New Jersey, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I just completed the Senior Management Tier Training Course at the Bed Bath & Beyond Institute in Freehold, New Jersey, and next month I’m being assigned to manage the Casual Dining Department at our superstore at the Minuteman Mall in Revere, Massachusetts. I’m pretty excited.  I’ve never been outside New Jersey before, so I want to be welcomed and stay out of arguments. So my question is, is it pronounced “Boston Seltics,” or “Boston Keltics”?

-Signed, Ron Murch

Dear Ron,

Boy, are you looking for trouble. There is a HUGE fight going on about that. Half the people around Boston think it’s one way and half the other, and they’re at each others throats all the time. Last winter they had to close all the bars in some of the neighborhoods because of it. 

Play it safe. Just every once in a while yell “Yankees suck!” and you’ll be fine.

-The Grammer Genious

Jager Bomb?

Mr. Neil Armstrong, a retired navy pilot of Wapakoneta Ohio, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I’m having an argument with my next door neighbor Darryl. I’ll get to that later, but first I have to explain the situation.

Darryl wants to sell his house to the QVC Network because there is a cubic zirconium mine in his basement. Well not exactly, yet. Anyway, I’m against it because I’m upside down on my own mortgage as it is.

What happened was, he was digging a hole in the wall of his basement to make a secret hiding place for his wife Jackie’s collection of Hummel figures. She has been collecting Hummels for about 20 years starting when they were in the navy, and now the collection is huge and very valuable, and they are getting tired of hiding them every time the doorbell rings because it take 20 minutes. So Darryl was going to make a hiding place for them, so they’d be safe in case there was a terrorist attack or whatever.

Anyway, while he was digging the hole in the wall down there he came across a thick vein of what he’s pretty sure is pure, high-quality cubic zirconium. He was very excited. The batteries in his flashlight burned out so he came over to my house to borrow some batteries, and we got to drinking Dortmunders, and then we started pouring Jagermeister into the Dortmunders, and after about 6 of those Darryl told me about his cubic zirconium mine, and that it was a secret, and that he was going to sell his house to the QVC network because they would probably be the main ones that could use a source of cubic zirconium like that.

Right away you could tell he regretted telling me because he was afraid I would blab about it and the neighbors would start “drinking my milkshake,” he said. Whatever that means. I don’t care about that, I’m just worried that having a operating precious jewelry mine shaft right next door to my house will hurt the market value of my house. So I said I was going to write to the the Auglaize County Zoning Board and also to the Letters to the Editor of the Wapakoneta Tribune. He was furious.

We’ll see what happens, but ok, here’s my question. Before that little disagreement I made some comment that we were having cocktails, and he says Dortmunder and Jaegermeister is not a cocktail, it’s a “Jager bomb.” I said it’s not a Jager bomb unless there’s an actual shot glass of Jagermeister dropped inside the glass of Dortmunder, like we used to do in the bars in Cocoa Beach when I was in the Apollo Program. I say, if you just pour the Jagermeister into the Dortmunder, it’s a cocktail. Who is right?

-Signed, Neil Armstrong

Dear Mr. Armstrong,

What a boring life you seem to have had. Is this the most exciting episode of your sad, Wapakoneta existence? How sad.

Anyway, you are right. It’s not a Jager Bomb unless the actual shot glass of Jagermeister is actually dropped into the glass of beer. 

Thanks for finally asking a question that I know the answer to for absolutely sure. I wish more of my fans would ask questions like that.

- The Grammer Genious

Forgot to Write in English

The Grammer Genious received this in the U.S. mail, written in a beautiful hand in dark blue ink on personalized, heavy, engraved, milled, die-embossed, cream-colored paper, from Mrs. Whitney W. Lockhurst III, a well-known society hostess of Toms River, New Jersey:

My dear Mr. Grammer Genious,

The half-sibling of my Hatha Yoga swami’s solicitor is a viola da gamba virtuosa, contracted to perform at the nuptials of my dear step-nephew Fitzwilliam. Which would be her proper appellation, “viola da gambist,” or “violist da gamba”?

With respect,

Mrs. Whitney W. Lockhurst III

Dear Mrs. III,

I realize that I said just that this column was about language, but I guess I should have specified that it is the ENGLISH language that I had in mind. So, if you are able to switch to English, I might be able to help you.

Here's a hint, to get you going: I’m pretty sure “appellation” is a mountain chain.

- The Grammer Genious

Surprise career move

Laura Ramirez, who was pursuing an Associates Degree in Entertainment Management at California’s Indio Community College while working as a dog groomer at the Puppy Luv Pet Salon in Yucca Valley and who, because of a coding error at Monster Dot Com (and through no fault of her own) was recently hired as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Instructor at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious.

I am really really confused in this new job and I really need a lot of help. The guys I teach in my Explosive Ordnance Disposal class are real nice to me and call me Doctor Ramirez (woot!), but I just try to keep a page ahead of them in the book and I say a lot of stuff in class that I remember from reading it, but I don’t know if any of it makes any sense, because all the guys do is just keep writing what I say into their laptops and they keep asking if this is going to be on the test. We’re supposed to go out on the range next week and I guess I’ll just have to keep faking it and take things one step at a time (haha).

I’ll probably be a lot better instructor next cycle. Josh, one of the other instructors here, who teaches Battlespace Intelligence, Modeling, and Simulation in the Mojave Viper program, said he got here through a Monster Dot Com coding error too, and he’s been here for eight years. He likes it. In his former job he used to deliver for FedEx, which was ok too, he says.

What I want to ask is something I don’t want to ask anybody here because they might think I’m dumb. All these soldiers here – I mean marines -- that I see around here are always saying “Simper fie, simper fie” to each other and to me. What does that mean?

-Signed, Laura Ramirez

Dear Dr. :-) Ramirez,

Congratulations on your new job. Lucky you!

I realize that in the type of school where you work there wouldn’t be any reason for there to be any dictionaries around, but the words you ask about would be in the dictionary. I don’t need to look them up of course, because I can usually puzzle out the meanings of phrases on my own.

“Simpering” is sort of like whimpering and complaining, I’m pretty sure. And “fie” is an old-fashioned word for “shame on you.” So those soldiers or whatever are just reminding each other that you should be ashamed if you complain. So, simper fie, Laura! And watch your step (haha).

-The Grammer Genious

The Atheistic Imperative

Father William Gilla, formerly a Benedictine monk at St. Dominic’s Monastery in Puyallup Washington and now defrocked and living on a grate in Pioneer Square in Seattle, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

It is doubtless a rare thing for classical grammar and theology to intersect in quite the way that it has for me recently, resulting as it has in my defrocking and excommunication from Holy Mother the Church. You are the most authoritative expert on grammar that I know of, so I am seeking out your help and advice.

For 14 years I taught English and Latin grammar, Art, and Self-Denial at the monastery’s secondary school. About a month ago I was finishing up my modest meal in the refectory, and the speakers were softly playing the Vatican Choir singing Paul McCartney’s “Let it be,” which put me in mind of the imperative mood of the verb -- I thought of the Biblical phrase “Let there be light.”

A troubling thought suddenly arose. The imperative mood of the verb is used for giving an order or request to another person – examples are when our abbott Brother Sylvester tells me, “Bless the wine,” or “Cane the insolent lad.” The person is telling a second person to do something.

But at the Creation, there was supposedly no other being but God! So if God was using the imperative mood, “Let there be light,” then there must have been somebody else there for him to be giving the command to!

I immediately brought this distressing epiphany to the attention of Brother Sylvester. He is my spiritual advisor whom I obey, but he mistakenly fancies that he knows grammar as well as I. He tried to explain that the verb in “the original Latin” of the phrase, fiat lux, is not in the imperative, but rather the hortatory (as if I didn’t know, and better than he!). I reminded him that the Latin is but a translation of the original Hebrew, יְהִי אוֺר   (yəhī ‘ōr), in which the verb is clearly in the imperative, just as in English.

Brother Sylvester was obviously annoyed at my superior knowledge, and responded, “Well, Brother, it is a mystery.” I told him that it was not at all a mystery, it was plain grammar! I said that I would bring this theological realization to the attention of Archbishop Sambi, the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington. Brother Sylvester stared at me for a moment and said, “Have a care, Gilla!” and walked quickly away, fuming.

That night at about 3:00 am, two burly priests invaded my cell, hustled me from my pallet, pushed me out of the monastery’s great wooden front door at the top of the Rosary Steps, and told me that I was expelled and should depart post-haste. I protested loudly and attempted to reenter but one of the priests took out a taser, and although I cried “Do not tase me, Brother!” he did so, and pushed me down the stairs.

So now I am homeless on a grate in Pioneer Square. I am writing to you for two reasons. First, can you confirm that I am correct in my assertions about the imperative mood in Genesis 1:3, an assertion that will perforce explode the very foundations not only of the Holy Catholic Church, but of all Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as well? And second, do you know of any job openings for an experienced grammarian? Neither the Times nor the Post-Intelligencer ever mentions any such positions. Occasionally The Stranger does, but that publication’s confusing irony defeats me.

Signed, Father W. Gilla, OSB, Defrocked

Dear Father Gilla,

Exactly what do you mean by this “imperative mood”? “Imperative” is just a fancy way of saying “necessary,” and a mood is something that you get into when you feel some way, like, when you’re in the mood for a Snicker’s bar or something. I don’t get people like you. Don’t you ever look anything up in the dictionary?

Also, Pioneer Square is infested with obnoxious cops with nothing to do. You should move to the touristy areas west of Pine Street near the Pike Place Market. There are more people there at night, and more places to pee. Wear your priest collar.

- The Grammer Genious

Rocket Science

Dr. Randy P. Gimble, a senior NASA researcher from Bethesda Maryland now living in a Motel 6, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

The other evening after dinner I was lounging in my lounge chair planning my high school class reunion on my iPad while the wife cleaned up the kitchen. Our son Cash was doing his homework and was stuck on a word problem, and my wife told him to “read it out loud to your father the great rocket scientist.” She said it sneery. That’s how she does.

He read it: “Mrs. Rodin bought a table and six chairs for $1,233. The table cost $750 more than a chair. How much did the six chairs cost?”

I was in the middle of trying to find out whether Mr. Houghton the high school drama teacher who directed the senior play “Oklahoma!” was dead or not, so without looking up from my iPad I explained to Cash that he should just subtract the $750 and divide the result by six, and he did that and said that the result is that a chair cost $80.50. Good, I said, write it down.

My wife, the great know-it-all who was loading the dishwasher, said to me, “No, dummy. Subtract the $750, then divide that by 7 (not 6), and multiply that by six and the answer is $414, because they want to know how much all six chairs cost, not one chair, and besides one chair cost $69 anyway, not $80.50, ya dummy.” And she went right on loading the dishwasher and humming loud and smirking. 

The great genius dishwasher-loader! She does that crap all the time, right in front of Cash. This time I totally lost it. 

Grammer Genious,  I am literally a rocket scientist! LITERALLY! I can’t allow some smirky woman loading a dishwasher to call my abilities into question in front of my kid! She should just believe me and shut up! I yelled at her very loud to just shut the aytch-ee-double-hockey-sticks *UP*!!! So then she threw a dishrag at me and told me to pack up and hit the road, and that I might want to throw a cheap calculator into my fanny-pack before I went out the door.

So now I am in living in the Motel 6 and I DON’T CARE how much six damn chairs cost because that’s NOT THE POINT! I am a ROCKET SCIENTIST! When I solve a problem, people should just believe me and SHUT UP!! That’s what they do at the office! Why can’t I get the same respect at home?!

-Signed, Dr. Randy P. Gimble

P.S. It doesn’t help that this motel room smells bad and the remote control feels sticky.

Dear Dr. Gimble,

First of all, what does all that have to do with grammer?

Second of all, your big mistake was taking the bait. One of the great joys of being a grownup – perhaps the greatest of all -- is that you never have to do any word problems.

And third of all, always take the plastic wrapper off one of the plastic cups by the sink, and put the remote into it while you use it.

-The Grammar Genious

Adverbs

Mr Howard Roark, a Manhattan architect, writes: Dear Grammer Genious, I am the architect charged with writing contract offers for the many subcontractors who will bid for various large jobs involved in the construction of the office towers to be built at Ground Zero in Manhattan. The goal is to make a lot of “moolah” start flowing into corporate coffers as quickly as possible. (By the way, "moolah" is what they keep talking about here. They have completely stopped mentioning any “memorial.” The talk is all about office space and “moolah.”) The big shot corporate types at the contracting meetings have stressed to me several times that when I am writing the contract offers I should “use as many adverbs as possible, for the sake of precision and enforceability.”  The problem is, not only do I have no idea what they mean by that, but I also don’t even know what an adverb is, and I think I should. I remember hearing about them back in, like, the 5th grade or something, but I’m pretty sure there were no adverbs mentioned in any of my classes at the Cornell University School of Architecture, so I guess I must have lost track of the concept somewhere along the line. Could you explain what an adverb is, please? - signed, Howard Roark Dear Mr. Roark, You’re in luck because the answer to your question is so easy. In English, words that end in “-ly” are called “adverbs.” (I believe I read somewhere that the word “ad-verb” comes from the Anglo-Saxon names for the letters “l” and “y”. Or maybe that was just a theory of mine. I'm not sure. Whatever.) Anyways, adverbs are considered highly preferable to other words and should be substituted for them whenever possible. For example, if instead of “Run quick” you say “Run quickly,” you show yourself to be erudite and precise. That’s probably what the big shots at those meetings were getting at. It is possible to compose sentences that consist almost entirely of adverbs, and that’s what you should aim at. Some examples: “Did a friendly burly hillbilly supply the bubbly comely shapely dolly with treacly jelly?” “Does the smelly dastardly barfly imply that the orderly and mannerly assembly was an anomaly? “ “The lowly slovenly bully let fly a crumbly bialy at the sprightly butterfly.” You see? The more adverbs, the better. Now, I have a kind of an architecture question for you. My wife wants to get one of those refrigerators with a freezer drawer on the bottom, but I think a regular one with the freezer on the top will increase the house's resale value more. What is you professional opinion? - The Grammer Genious

A Clueless Fulbright Scholar

Jerrod Morse, a graduate student from St. John’s College in Annapolis Maryland now pursuing a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Heidelberg, Germany, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

My German students studying English have a hard time with the “who/whom” distinction, since there is nothing remotely like it in their own simple language.

I find that I have trouble explaining it to them, since I myself don’t seem to understand it at all. I keep giving examples that are the opposite of each other and it gets all mixed up, and the students laugh at me and I hear them whispering “dummkopf” and “doofe amis,” which I suspect are locutions of disparagement. Could you explain the distinction, please?

Dear Jerrod,

I don’t understand why this “who/whom” thing keeps coming up, because it’s so easy that it’s just silly.

Use “who” if it’s before a verb. “To who it may concern.” “Who” comes before “may,” so “who” is the correct form.

Use “whom” if it’s after a verb. “I know whom did it.” “Whom” comes after “know,” so “whom” is the correct form. Get it, Mr. Fulbright Scholar?

Even if they “sound wrong,” those choices ought to be intuitive and automatic, without even thinking about it. If they aren’t, then maybe it’s time for you to forget about your fancy college and go back to the 3rd grade or something.

Also, a heads-up for you, at no extra charge: the Germans are still kind of clueless about how to make beer, and the beer they make is pretty bad, so watch out. Also, they haven’t heard about pasteurization over there yet, so you might get diarrhea.

- The Grammer Genious

Must be true.

Mr. Arthur Adams, a gym teacher at Joliet East High School in Joliet Illinois, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

The kids don't think I'm smart like the other teachers because I teach gym, so they don't always believe the things I tell them and sometimes I think they make fun of me.

Like, so they'll realize I know things, I tell them sometimes those little-known facts like about how the word "sirloin" was invented, when King Henry the Eighth was eating it and he liked it so much that he rose and knighted it right there on his plate, saying "I dub thee Sir Loin." I've heard that story lots of times.

Also, the fact that Mozart, that painter or whatever, was originally a Jewish guy named Moses, but the king liked his art so much that he changed Moses's name to Moz-Art, as an honor.

Some of the snottier kids who aren't very good at sports tell me that those facts are B.S. Are they? I think they're just sore because they get picked last, but whose fault is that?

-Yours truly, Art Adams

Dear Mr. Adams,

If more attention was paid to the gym teachers of our great nation, we wouldn't be in the trouble we're in. I learned most of my high school knowledge from the gym teachers.

Those stories are examples of the saying "You can't make that stuff up." Who could possibly invent such facts? They must be true. So, don't take any guff from those sissy smart-alecks. Give them a D in gym.

- The Grammer Genious.

P.S.  Go Kingsmen!

“My ol’ lady and me”

Dr. Carl Switzer, avuncular bald-headed expert on marital relationships, emotions, and feelings, and the host of the nationally famous men’s advice show “The Dr. Carl Show” on ESPN, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Which is right, “my wife and I” or “my wife and me”? 

This is driving me crazy. I know there are certain rules, but when I am on the air on my nationally known TV program speaking extemporaneously, it’s hard for me to figure out which one to say when I come up against the phrase all of a sudden in a long, insightful, and thoughtfully complex sentence full of wisdom. That tends to make me seem to be less than commanding and omniscient about the topic at hand. 

Please tell me the rules. I know it has something to do with a “direct object” or some such concept.

- signed, Dr. Carl Switzer

Dear Dr. Carl,

You should trust your instincts on this one. Doesn’t “my wife and me” sound rather abrupt and common? It sounds sort of like “Him and me’s goin’ fishin’” and such colloquialisms as that, to say nothing of the disrespect it betrays toward your wife.

On the other hand, “my wife and I” sounds more elegant, and will always lend a tone of gentility to any sentence. “The police broke into our home meth lab and arrested my wife and I.”  “Google Street View caught my wife and I rooting through a dumpster.”  You get the idea.

On another topic, I want take this opportunity to personally thank you for saving my marriage when I phoned your show fourteen years ago following my wife and I’s explosive domestic incident involving the Datsun pickup truck and the pet ferret, which I won’t go into here because it’s too personal. But I’m sure you remember it.

- The Grammer Genious

No Exceptions

Mr. Maximilian Blodgett, the District Attorney of Ole Rolvaag County, South Dakota, writes:

Dear Mr.  Grammer Genious,

I spend ten hours a day following Sheriff Tom Zevenbergen around as he breaks up meth labs, collars the disgusting little perps, and throws their pathetic asses in jail.

We have an anal-retentive judge in this county who requires a ream of paperwork for each and every contemptible little piss-ant that gets tossed into the pokey, so I am trying to streamline the process by ginning up some boilerplate on MS Word. They’re all the same – “State of South Dakota, County of Ole Rolvaag, Affidavit…” etc. I’ve written it so that we authorities are always “who” and the perps are always “whom,” since that seems to make sense, but I wanted to make sure that was right. Is it?

M. A. Blodgett

District Attorney

Ole Rolvaag County

Bleak, SD 57025

Dear Mr. Blodgett,

Any grammar rule made up by duly authorized civic officials is correct, by definition. You have made an admirable one. Grammar rules should always be made up so as to have no exceptions. That might dissatisfy the local English teachers (who always think they’re so smart), but it’s bound to make your anal-retentive judge happy.

- The Grammer Genious
P.S. How can you STAND to live there?? No offense, just asking.

A hare's breath

Ms. Laura Ingraham, a right-wing radio talker who is usually put on the air in the middle of the night on small AM radio stations in the more goober areas of the country, writes:
 

Dear Grammer Genious,

I am a public person being listened to by millions of people but I feel so stupid much of the time, because I don’t really know the meaning of the random stuff that I say between the commercials for colon cleansing products and schemes for buying gold to bury in your back yard. I generally feel pretty dumb. Like for instance, I was wondering today why people say “missed by a hare’s breath,” and “wet our appetites,” and stuff?

Signed, Laura Ingraham

Dear Ms. Ingraham,

Most expression like those are pretty self-explanatory if you stop to think about it. Rabbits hardly breathe at all, so “missed it by a hare’s breath” means missed by a very small amount.“Wet our appetites” probably comes from having a drink before dinner, to get your mouth all wet and make it ready for food.

The important thing is not to appear to be shy or ignorant.  Don't let them catch on. Just keep saying random stuff.

- The Grammer Genious

Pre-Gaga

Kaiytlyyne Wojciechowski, an 8^th grader at Gene Stratton Porter Middle School in Decatur Indiana, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

My mom is the biggest effing B-word in the world. She’s always trying to boss me and controll me and quiz me, and when I finally tell her off and to get out of my stuff, she always says that I am a “pre-madonna.” What is a “pre-madonna”?

- Signed, Kaiytlyyne

Dear Kaiytlyyne,

I’ve never heard of anything that sounds like that, but she probably meant that you are on your way to becoming a rock star like Madonna. You wouldn’t know about Madonna because she was from back in your parents’ time. She was sort of like Lady Gaga only not as good.

Anyway, it sounds to me that your mom is complimenting you on your spunkiness, so keep doing exactly what you’re doing, and write to me again after you’re famous.

- The Grammer Genious

Blunders to not worry about

Phil Sievers, a part-time clerk and popcorn maker at the candy counter of the Carleton Theater on Fenkell Avenue in Detroit, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

In the wake of my almost Associates Degree from Oakland University, I am having job interviews to get a job as a reporter on some newspaper because I took Journalism in high school and got a pretty high grade, and I think I would be a natural born jouranist. But not even the local free sale papers here will hire me. I am afraid I am making blunders at the interviews because they keep saying things about grammer that I really don’t get, like “upper case” and “noun.”

For instance, what are a split infinitive, and a dangling participal? I want to avoid those kinds of errors, but I don’t know what NOT to do because I don’t know what they are.

- Signed, Phil Sievers

Dear Mr. Sievers,

I don’t think you have to worry about split infinitives, because it is such an obviously stupid mistake that you’d have to be a real dope to actually do it. And, reading through your letter, no dangling participals are evident so you don’t have to worry about that either.

Incidentally, what is that probably life-shortening yet overwhelming, scrumptious-smelling oily fluid that you theater guys put on the popcorn?

- The Grammer Genious

Hard & Fast Rules

Wally Urkie, a sales associate at The Linoleum Barn in Overland Park Kansas and winner of the Employee Of The Month award for two months in a row, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Would you settle a bar argument? This has come up three weeks in a row at our mandatory Friday afternoon/evening Team Build at Chili’s, usually after the 5^th or 6^th Bud Lite.

Which is correct: “between her and I” or “between she and me”? Also, is there a hard and fast rule?

Incidentally, you're all we talk about. When somebody is quoting you, everybody else shuts up to listen.

- Signed, Wally Urkie

Dear Wally,

Technically, “between her and I” is correct, for reasons that I don’t think you would understand because it's complicated. However, “between she and me” is more commonly used because of its elegance.

All grammer rules are hard and fast rules; hard because they’re so difficult, and fast because they keep changing with lightening speed.

- The Grammer Genious

Rave

Mavis Pruitt, a concert coordinator who works in media and has been crashing at her step-brother's flat in Croydon, UK, and other random places for about seven years, writes:

 
Hey, yeah, we're organizing this rave in an abandoned mosque and the proceeds are gonna go to that thing what happened in the Middle East or Africa or whatever. We're gonna make posters but we need to know if the following things are one word or two words, so we can make the posters and whatever.

oldschool
technorave
wristbanding
breakcore

synthpunk

psytrance

scratchpervert
乱痴気パーティ

electrogrime

cybergrind

glowsticks

-Signed, Mavis

Dear Mavis,

Sorry but this one-word-or-two-words thing is SPELLING and I don’t do spelling, which is a relief for me because I don’t know what the HELL you’re talking about. But I did a little cursory research for you and if you can get on the internet I think you can find out everything you want to know on http://www.christianraves.com. It tells all about gospelrave, technolord, and holy hip hop and all the Jesus stuff that I assume you’re into.

- The Grammer Genious

"Littler" -- eeuw

Paul Le Blanc, a general surgeon practicing in Forks, Washington, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

My friend and I have been debating over how to refer to something that is smaller than another. Should we say "littler" or "more little?" "Littler" sounds like a bad punk rock band name while "more little" sounds like you have a set amount of little while something else has more of that little. Which is more correct?

-Paul Le Blanc

Dear Dr. Le Blanc,

You have raised several issues that you for sure don’t even know about.

There are three reasons why people don’t like to use the word “littler.” The first is that “little” has two syllables, and when you add an ending to a word it’s supposed to make the word longer, but in this case it doesn’t because you still end up with two syllables, so it seems like you have wasted your time.

The second reason is that to make an adjective comparative by adding “-er” it generally has to have only one syllable – like, “big-bigger” or “fat-fatter”. If it has two syllables it is very hard to add “-er” to it because it gets unwieldy and it sounds funny, and it makes you forget what it was that you were going to say in the first place. Adding a suffix to a THREE-syllable word is of course absurd and out of the question, and doing so marks the writer as a person who is only semi-literate and just doesn’t “get” English, like that hack W. Shakespeare with his anti-English monstrosities like “unworthiest,” etc.

The third and most important reason is that we just have no way in English to express the idea of “smaller.” Mrs. Grammer Genious makes the insightful comment that this doubtlessly explains why English-speaking people tend to be such a bunch of great huge fatties; they can’t conceive of the idea of getting smaller, because there is no word for it in English. This provides us with irrefutable proof of the Whorfian hypothesis.

- The Grammer Genious

Straightforward school sign

Delaware pilot and retail entrepreneur Wendel Heid writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Last week I was taking my children to school for their first day of the year.  As I approached the school their was a flashing sign that said, "give kids a break".  I'm confused.

-Wendel Heid

Dear Mr. Heid,

The highly trained professional educators who programmed the flashing school sign were probably trying to say that drivers should step on their cars’ breaks when they see children in the street. I don’t quite understand why that would confuse you. I'm betting very few of the other parents were confused at all.

- The Grammer Genious

Socialistic-type teachers

Courtney Murphy-Brattland, a senior at Marie Curie High School in San Luis Obisbo California, writes:

I am in California in one of the more or less effete counties, going into 12th grade AP English and I expect to get into Stanford so I am DEFINTELY not going to NOT excel, but I’m worried about my English teacher Mrs. Druding who seems to be a freethinker and not of the main-line type of thought, if you get my drift, so I don’t want her to throw me off-path from my goals. She says that this from Romio and Juliet is a sonnet but it doesn’t look like one to me, it’s all broken up.

Romeo:

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet:

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Romeo:

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Juliet:

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Romeo:

Oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.

They pray: grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet:

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

Romeo:

Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

They French-kiss; Juliet:

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo:

Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!

Give me my sin again.

They tongue-suck really deep and long; Juliet:

You kiss by th' book.

But Mrs. Druding says that THIS thing by e. e. cummings is ALSO a sonnet!

"next to of course god america i

love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh

say can you see by the dawn's early my

country 'tis of centuries come and go

and are no more what of it we should worry

in every language even deafanddumb

thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry

by jingo by gee by gosh by gum

why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-

iful than these heroic happy dead

who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter

they did not stop to think they died instead

then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Now does that make any sense at all? Should I try to tranfer to some other class? I am desparate and scared.

- Courtney Murphy-Brattland

Dear Courtney,

That's crazy. That teacher is SO WEIRD!! This kind of left-winger cluelessness is unfortunately quite common, ESPECIALLY in the better schools, for some reason. Yes, get out of that class if possible. It will widen your mind way out, and you'll NEVER get into Stanford.

- The Grammer Genious

Off the top of my head (Tah-daaah!)

Larry Fortensky, an assistant therapist at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage California, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I’m having a really contentious argument with a patient. He’s real real famous but I can’t tell you who he is. What is the difference between macadam and tarmac?

- Signed, Larry Fortensky

Dear Mr. Fortensky,

Why do people keep asking me for information that they could easily get from the Internet?

But never mind, in this case I’m pretty sure I can answer your question without looking anything up. I’m pretty sure  “Tarmac” was a famous late-nineteenth-century magician and escape artist. I think they made some movie about him lately, if I’m not mistaken. And Macadam of course was the third president of the United States. No, the fourth. No, I’m pretty sure it was the third.

Anyway I didn’t mean to discourage any of you out there from asking questions, because otherwise how will you ever learn anything?

- The Grammer Genious

"Us the People", yeah right

Sloane Fowler, an 11th grade student at David Duke High School in Millsboro, Delaware, writes:

Dear Mr. Grammer Genious,

Senator-Elect Christine O’Donnell of our great state of Deleware (the first state) said after her election the other day, “Don't ever underestimate the power of we the people.”

My English teacher Mr. Gumm says she should of said “of us the people” because of some preposicion, or something like that. Is he right? I think he is a liberal.

- Yours truly, Sloane Fowler

Dear Sloane,

Hasn’t your so-called teacher ever read the Declaration of Independance? The words “We The People” are written right up there at the top, in big letters. So, first of all, why are they hiring people in our schools that have never even read the Declaration of Independance? And second of all, anybody that thinks “us the people” sounds like good English shouldn’t be teaching anything, let alone English. I am appalled.

- The Grammer Genious

Illogic

Dr. Deepak Chaturvedi, adjunct professor of horticultural sciences at Florida State University, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

At my university I am leading research in the field of enzyme inhibition of the fungus Venturia inaequalis spilocaea in citrus and apple root stock. The anamorphs are remarkably dichotomous between the two plant types, and I have written three learned treatises on the topic, all of which have been mysteriously rejected by the Proceedings of the American Society of Horticultural Science, this country’s journal of record.

No reasons are given for the rejections, except to say that my “overall intent is impossible.” I cannot understand this, and suspect that there must be some underlying linguistic or cultural aspect to the issue of which I am unaware (I am from India), and I hope that you might cast some light on this issue.

- Yours, Dr. Deepak Chaturvedi

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Dr. Chaturvedi,

Than you for enclosing copies of your treatises, all of which I read closely and enjoyed immensely, especially “Overwintering of the anamorph of Venturia inaequalis in orange and apple buds, and the viability of conidia as affected by discontinuous wetting.” I read them all while relaxing at the beach.

The reason for all of those rejections is simple: You are attempting to compare apples and oranges. In English-speaking countries, that cannot be done, because it is illogical.

- The Grammer Genious

Unclear question

Earl Bannister, a part-time delivery person for CVS Pharmacy in Chesterfield Township MI, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I’m curious about something. Maybe I should give you a running start to my question, to give you some context so you’ll understand it.

I was making deliveries on my bike on Thursday and my head itched so I tried to scratch it through one of those slits on top of the bike helmet and my finger got stuck in the hole. I wanted to stop and try to get it out but the bike’s left handbrake is broken so I tried to reach the right handbrake across with my left hand and the bike went down very hard on the pavement separating my shoulder and breaking my finger.

The COBRA insurance I have from when I got laid off from GM paid for the shoulder operation but not for the finger because COBRA doesn’t cover digits. And even though I was full of surgery stitches and anesthetic, COBRA wouldn’t let me stay in the hospital but instead took me to their contract recovery motel the Chesterfield Inn, which was not very nice because it smelled like Lysol and had plastic mattress covers under the sheet that crackled and the place was full of strange people that yelled all night.

A nurse was sposed to come every day to help change my bandage but she didn’t come until Saturday and she was drunk so she couldn’t do much. Nobody came on Sunday but on Monday this very nice prostitute named Tiffany was working the motel and when she got to my room it was obvious I was in no condition to party but she re-did my bandage for me very nicely and then she went out and got us some ramen noodles and we ate them and watched “Storm Stories” on the Weather Channel which is her favorite program.

I’m out of the motel now but I think I have an infection. Ok, so anyway here is my question. Tiffany says “feb-ROO-ary,” but I say “feb-YOO-ary. Which is right?

- Earl Bannister

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Earl,

First of all, if there was a Wawa anywhere near you she should of got you guys some of their mac and cheese, because it is AWESOME!

Second of all, I’m not quite following your thread. What exactly is the question? Which is right about WHAT?

- The Grammer Genious

PetSmart

Kyle Schultz, a 2008 graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in Sports Communication who is currently the assistant manager of a strip-mall hobby shop in Laurel and lives in his parents’ basement in Savage, MD, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

There is this pet store chain called “PetSmart.” How is that word supposed to be read? Does it mean “pet smart,” like, if your domestic animal is intelligent you should come to that store? Hey, what the hell does the intelligence of the ANIMAL have to do with it? Or maybe it means “pets mart,” like, a mart for pets. And what’s “PretzeLand”? Also, what’s a “mart?”

- Signed, Kyle Schultz

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Kyle,

I called the PetSmart company, and it turns out they payed a gajillion dollars to a big ad agency for a name that was “both ambigous and clever,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. They wouldn’t give a straight answer to your question. In fact, the woman on the phone seemed to be anoyed and was talking down to me. Not that I care, because I never go there anymore anyway since they keep being out of the exact kind of cat litter that I have a coupon for.

I don’t know what a “mart” is, so it couldn’t be that.

- The Grammer Genious

Foriegn Spelling

Charles Foster Kane IV, former senator and current editor and publisher of the powerful daily newspaper New York Inquirer, writes:

My dear Grammer Genious,

I am resorting to your blog because it has been recommended to me by some very respected academic acquaintances in the Department of Rhetoric at Columbia University.

Here is my issue. The Islamic names and terms currently in the news are driving the copy editors and proofreaders of our newspaper crazy. How should we spell Mohammed, or Muhammad, or Mahomet, etc etc.? Is it to be Shiite, or Shite, or Shi’ite (they all sound vaguely vulgar, n’est pas?), and what in the world is a Sufi and a Wahhabi and a Mujahed and a Taliban and a Sunni, etc. etc.? It is monumentally confusing. I thought that we had put paid to this whole Arabic spelling issue when my grandfather helped the CIA to perform a secret lobotomy on Moammar Qadhafi back in ’89.

Please help us – we are at the end of our tether up here in the lofty, gleaming Inquirer Tower on Columbus Circle.

- Signed, Charles Foster Kane IV

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Senator Kane,

Hey, I TOLD everybody not to ask me about speling! But I can adress your problem anyway. 

Mr. Kane, patriotic Americans don’t care about all that Arabic stuff. In fact, they don’t even want to hear about it, unless we’re, like, kicking their asses or something. So just leave it all out. You’ll sell more papers.

Glad to help.

While I’ve got you here, my Aunt Gladys that lives on 186^th near Metcalf in Queens says her paper has been late every day for almost two weeks now.  You got a new guy on the route, or something?

- The Grammer Genious

3D

Glen Urquhart, a former Hotte Shoppes grill chef who retired to Burke VA, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I was watching the Weather Channel and they said “Here is a 3D image of Hurricane Earl.” Now, I don’t have a 3D television, but I could see the picture of the hurricane anyway. So, if I can see 3D pictures on a regular TV, why should I buy a 3D TV? What does 3D mean, anyway?

- Glen Urquhart

Dear Glen,

Was it The Weather Channel’s Hurricane Expert Bryan Norcross that said the hurricane picture was in 3D? Because if it was Bryan Norcross that said it was in 3D, then it WAS. Did you ask your wife if SHE bought a new 3D TV and forgot to tell you? Maybe that was why you could see the 3D picture of the hurricane.

3D just means that the picture looks really cool and sometimes scary.

- The Grammer Genious

Abbess

George Bailey III, Chief Enforcing Officer in the Foreclosures Division of the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan Association in Bedford Falls PA, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

What is an abbess?

-Signed, George Bailey III

+++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Mr. Bailey,

That’s easy. An abbess is the wife of an abbott.

-The Grammer Genious

PS. Hey, unless you meant to say “abcess.” Is that what you meant? Because that would be something different.

Kilometers

Ms. Stormi McIlhenny, a physical trainer and masseuse at the Final Honeymoon Resort & Spa in Boca Mojada FL, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Would you settle a bar argument? My best friend Brandi and me are going to Mexico next month, where they have kilometers, and Brandi bets me that the word kilometer should be pronounced KILL-ometer, with the accent at the beginning. She said she heard that on the olympics. She says it’s what Bob Kosta says. I say it should be kil-LAH-meter, the same as like in speedometer and odometer. KILL-ometer sounds like counting dead victims or something. Whose right? A bottle of TGI Friday’s Mudslide On the Rocks is riding on this, so be a cool guy and say I’m right! :-)

- Stormi

Dear Ms. Stormi,

Sorry, but your friend Brandi is right. Speedometers and odometers are devices, not units of measure like centimeters and millimeters – and KILL-ometers.

It’s true that a lot of people say kil-LAH-meters, but those people are just making a wry joke, like when people say “accent on the wrong syl-LAH-ble.” They’re just having a little fun with the word, is all. But it’s surprising how many people (like you) are so naïve or thick that they can’t recognize a joke when they hear it.

Now, take a wad of massage-oily dollar bills out of your fake Gucci bag and go buy Brandi that bottle of TGI Friday’s Mudslide On the Rocks. (Eeuw)

-The Grammer Genious

Excapees

Mr. Elvis Sweeney, a pegboard display engineer at the Family Dollar Store in Clopton Alabama on Route 10 next to the Dainty Digits Nail Salon, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

How come they call the people that excape from prison “excapees”? If their the ones that excaped, then their the excapERS, aren’t they? The ones that got excaped FROM are the excapees. The GUARDS would be the excapees. I mean, am I right?

- Signed, Elvis Sweeney

++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Mr. Sweeney,

Hey I never thought of that.

- The Grammer Genious

Űber-Analyzation

Herr Florian Strümpfenstopfer, a klieglight technician and make-up artist in the TV studio of the German network Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten Deutschlands in Frankfurt Germany, writes:

Dear Respected Doktor Grammer Genious,

Thank you sorely for your needful Website, it is wunderbar. It will help me to stuty your beautiful englisch Language.

Now I try to understand Englisch version words to our famous beloved German folksong “Auf Wiedersehen, Fräulein amerikanische Strudel.” I think that in your Language you are calling this song “Bye Bye Miss American Pie.”

Anyvays, in Englisch words version comes this:

I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck

With a pink carnation and a pickup truck…

Is words is not in original jolly German wersion (Ich war jung und ahnungslosen, mit Rucksack und Lederhosen). Is not in Spirit of jolly original German folktune, no?

Tell me please what means this “broncin’ buck”? Is “broncin’” is present partiziple of verb “To bronc,” but not finds itself in my Dictionary. Is passiv pluperfect of verb in Indicativ mood, perhaps?

I am happy I find someone understands dese things.

-Yours, Florian Strümpfenstopfer

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Herr Whatever-your-name-is,

I don’t want to seem insensitive or lacking in commitment to diversity and all that stuff, but frankly I don’t know what the HELL you’re talking about. Why all this analyzation and fancy Greeky words? Just open your mouth and let regular normal English come out of it, as it naturally does. That works fine for me, and everybody I know.

Incidentally, don’t you feel guilty about the war and all? Just curious.

-The Grammer Genious