A bright future for a young lad!

Mrs. Judy Lindquist, a housewife of Seattle Washington, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Our family has an issue. We are feeling very happy and lucky right now, but still we have this issue, maybe.

Ok here’s the thing. We have only this one child, Jason, and of course we are very anxious for him to have everything that America has to offer a young man, so that he can get ahead in life. For many years, my husband Thorvald and I have been working behind the scenes to get Jason accepted into the Ballard Motorcycle Club, a local and very prestigious band of motorcycle toughs in Ballard. They practically own Ballard, and woe betide you if you get on their bad side. So of course we wanted Jason to get into that club.

Well, last month he was accepted, and we were delighted, but here’s the thing. As part of the initiation he was supposed to get the words “BORN TO LOSE” tattooed across his forehead in purple. The thing is, he was told to report to the gang’s tattoo guy who lives in his car near the Urban Rest Stop in Ballard, so Jason sat in the back seat for the tattooing and the guy seemed preoccupied, and he kept going around to the front seat to noodle on his guitar, and his chick this Gothic kinda girl kept coming in and out and doing lines and generally distracting everybody, and well the bottom line is that the words on Jason’s forehead aren’t exactly in a straight line, and they say “BORN TOO LOOSE”. As soon as Thorvald and I saw it, we looked at each other and we both said at the same time, “The Grammer Genious!” So we are writing to you and what we want to know is, is this a big deal, or not? Should we be concerned? Should we do anything about it?

Signed, Mrs. Thorvald Lindquist, Seattle, WA

Dear Mrs. Lindquist,

Congratulations on launching your son into a bright future! I wouldn’t worry about the tattoo wording. You’re going to have to stop helicoptering over the lad now, since he is out and on his way. The important thing is that he got in, and his life path is now secure. You and your husband should just relax and savor the satisfaction of a parenting task well done!

Good English teachers know their dumb

Miss Aspidistra Flynn, Head of the English Department at St. Isadore of Seville High School in McAlisterville, Pennsylvania, writes:

Dear Grammar Genius,

My ninth graders and I follow your blog religiously. We profit immensely from your knowledge and wisdom regarding English grammar and usage, but mostly we enjoy and revel in your continual wit, good humor, and the droll ripostes you drop into your daily column. Repeated quotations from your insightful and humorous writing, along with the gay laughter they provoke, echo throughout the day in the halls of St. Isadore of Seville High School.

Yesterday a question came up in class which only you can answer. (I willingly acknowledge that, being the product of a late 20^th century American public education, I myself am of course limited in the amount and quality of knowledge I am qualified to impart to the students).

The question is this: What is the difference in meaning and proper usage between the words “perspicacity” and “perspicuity”?

I must add that I have been refraining from retiring solely because of the usefulness of your blog in my classroom. God bless you for your work.

Sincerely,

Aspidistra ("call me Aspie!") Flynn

Dear Aspie,

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. Your frank avowal of the manifest incompetence of modern-day English teachers is curiously refreshing. Your right: when it comes to English, you English teachers all really are awful dumb. Would to God that English teachers everywhere in our crumbling education system were as honest as you are.

In answer to your question, those two fancy words that you said are both pretty big, so actually there is not much point in piddling around and trying to draw some hoity-toity distinctions between them. I would advise your ninth graders to just avoid both of them.

The Grammer Genious

Grandpaw said the F-word

Mrs. Elihu Garrison, a farm housewife who lives outside Wabash, Indiana, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Last Sunday at dinner when I was arranging the table, I was trying to push the mayonnaise jello salad sideways and I accidently dumped a whole, big, hot, maple peach glazed ham into Grandpaw's lap, and he stood right up and yelled the F-word right in front of the children. I never heard Grandpaw say that word ever before in my whole life. And on the Sabbath! What do you suppose came over him? He was peevish the whole rest of the evening. I think he must of learned that word when he was in the Korian War. I had to re-trim the ham.

Signed, Mrs. Mary B. Shell Garrison

Dear Mrs. Garrison,

Was that the first time in your whole life that you ever dumped a whole, big, hot, maple peach glazed ham into your father's lap? If so, maybe he was just surprised, is all.

My mom used to stick dried cloves and pineapple slices all over the ham, so Grandpaw was lucky, in a way, and so were the children -- think what he might of said with cloves and pineapple all over his pants.

The Grammer Genious

Homework help, for teachers

Dr. Sylvia Batillo. an AP English teacher at Hammond High School in Columbia, Maryland, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

What is the difference, if any, between "perpetuate" and "perpetrate"? To all intensive purposes, they seem the same to me. Some smart-ass kids in my AP English class asked me about those words, with a smirk. They're always trying to emberrass me.

Dr.Sylvia Batillo, Ed.D.

Dear Dr. Batillo,

Oh, those words are about the same, give or take. There are probably some little differences, but people that insist on going on and on about some fancy little differences are just thinking too hard, or else trying to show off.

If you want to get those kids off your back, you should get them into FANTASY FOOTBALL! I'm totally besotted with it, it's all I ever do or think about. I bet you can do the whole thing on a Smart Board, and they'll stop asking you dumb English stuff.

The Grammer Genious

A deal breaker

Mr. Leon Czolgosz Sullivan, a tool-and-die maker and political anarchism activist in Detroit, Michigan, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Please settle an argument between my girlfriend and me. She corrects my grammar all the time, even in public when we’re, like, out in a restaurant or something. I think that correcting another person’s grammar is a deal-breaker. It’s like she’s not listening to what I’m saying, she’s just tracking my grammar.  So I’m thinking of breaking up with her. What do you think?

Leon Czolgosz Sullivan

Dear Leon,

Correcting another person’s grammer is totally unacceptable, but don’t break up with her yet. First do things like, after she has made some long, thoughtful statement and it’s time for you to answer, say, “You’ve got a piece of spinach on your tooth,” and the next time say “Is there something inside your nose?” and the next time say “That spot on your arm looks like it itches,” and keep doing that until SHE breaks up with YOU.

Incidentally, you should of written “my girlfriend and I,” not “my girlfriend and me.”

The Grammer Genious

Elbow noodle

Miss Veda Pierce, an inmate at California's Folsom Prison serving time for killing her mother’s estranged husband in 1945 when he refused to become her lover, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

What is an elbow noodle?

Signed Veda Pierce, Prisoner #14858

Dear Veda,

You must be pretty much out of it from spending so many years in the slammer. It’s a very popular fad expression among the young people nowadays. An elbow noodle is when you’re standing next to somebody and you tickle them in the ribs with your elbow. Like in, “I think he likes me. He gave me an elbow noodle while we were standing in line.”

Hey, do you prisoners still bang on your tin trays to piss off the bulls? Just curious. I just watched Wallace Beery in "The Big House" again.

The Grammer Genious

Shuddup, ya old bag

Miss Evangeline Pettibone, a strict prescriptivist who has been teaching award-winning English literature and grammar classes at Erasmus Hall High School in New York City since 1977, writes:

Dear Grammar “Genius,”

Your “blog” was recently brought to my attention by two of my better students who, I regret to say, had apparently been taking it seriously.

It is difficult for me adequately to express my distress at your dreadful writing style. The naive young people see it and mistake it for passable English. It sets a very bad example indeed, and it frustrates and undercuts our efforts as educators, upon whom society has placed the burden of elevating our students’ love and appreciation of our beloved English language, as perfected by Shelley, Keats, and the immortal Swinburne.

Your intolerant and dismissive attitude, your fatuous, presumptuous assertions, your willful philistinism and, in particular, your egregious serial solecisms are profoundly distressing. I mention in particular your profligate misuse of the word ”whom,” a pronoun the function and force of which you clearly have no understanding whatever.

I beg you to close down this “blog” of yours, at least until such time as you have successfully completed a serious college-level course in writing.

Sincerely,

Miss Evangeline Pettibone, M.A.

Chair, English Department

Erasmus Hall

New York, NY

Hey listen, Pettibone, your not the boss of English, I know all about you. My friends and me took plenty of your brand of miserable crap back in high school and we should of told you off back then. You gave my friends and I a bellyful what with your “objective passives,” “dangling particles,” and “split propositions.” 

I happen to have a God-given insight and feeling for English without haffing to stick my nose into a bunch of books and I also make plenty of dough giving out advice about it, so just get lost you prune-faced old celibate.

Also, I’m very sorry if anyone has been offended by this.

The Grammer Genious

Comma or not

Esther Blodgett, a young Hollywood starlet married to an aging faded alcoholic matinee idol, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Does the sentence “Next time you pour my gin down the drain[,] I’ll break your little goddamn neck” require a comma between the main clause and the dependent adverbial complement?

Signed, Esther Blodgett

Dear Miss Blodgett,

Nah.

The Grammer Genious

P.S. I'm selling your autograph on eBay, if that's ok with you.