A fake stone

Kay Bergdahl, a display designer, or "flairista," at the gift shop and snack bar of the Dan Quayle Museum in Huntington, Indiana, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

What is apartite? Is it like tourmaline, or cubic zirconium? My boyfriend Zack says there used to be lots of apartite in South Africa but nowadays there is none left, or something. I think maybe he is just trying to not get me any. Do you think he is just trying to make excuses for not getting me the jewlery that I need? Why can't they just reopen the mines?  Sometimes he laughs at me for no reason. 

Kay Bergdahl
Main Flairista, Dan Quayle Museum.

Dear Miss Bergdahl,

It's not in the wikipedia, so I can't think what he could be talking about. It sounds like he probaby just made it up.

The Grammer Genious

NO SPELLING, I said!

MacKenzie Tandaleo Yoder, Second Assistant Head Cheerleader and treasurer of the junior class at Grover Norquist High School in Provo, Utah, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

How do you spell syzygy? Obviously that can't be right.

Signed, MacKenzie 

Dear MacKenzie,

I told you and told you to not ask me spelling questions. But besides, I think your cat must have walked on your keyboard. Whatever word it was that you were asking about came out as just a jumble of letters. Write to me again.

The Grammer Genious

A fetched thing

Mrs. Dora Carrington Puterbaugh, a housewife in Bloomsbury, New Jersey, who sells painted landscapes on eBay, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,


Our two sons, Lytton Strachey Puterbaugh and Clive Bell Puterbaugh, are currently doing a stretch in the Hunterdon County Correctional Facility for some just silly mischief that they did (they were trying to go into our neighbor Hilaire Belloc Zansky's house to borrow some electronic equipment, and Lytton got stuck while trying to worm through the pet door and Clive couldn't pull him through, and silly Hilaire came home and got the wrong idea and called the cops). It was just some silly capering, but things sort of got out of hand.


My husband Leonard got all peevish about it and said if I think we're spending a whole bunch of our money on those kids' college I have another thing coming. I told him he should say another think coming, not thing. He said that was pretty far fetched because think is a verb, not a noun. Anyway he went and withdrew Clive and Lytton's whole college fund out of the bank and bought MegaMillions lotto tickets with it, and it was all lost.


Signed, Mrs. Leonard Woolf Puterbaugh

Dear Mrs. Puterbaugh,

I think you are completely missing the point. When your husband said your claim was "far fetched," he is misconstruing far as an adverb, when it is in fact an adjective. He should have said that your claim was distantly fetched.

Anyway, from what you have said about your offspring, the lotto tickets were a pretty good idea. Better to take a chance now than to just throw the money away later.

The Grammer Genious

English English

Miss Pippa Pennybucket, a bank executive and shepherdess of Nether Wallop, Hampshire, UK, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I would appreciate an American perspective on this issue, since England long ago passed the linguistic torch to your side of the Atlantic, as we here in England admit unanimously. We are such a tiny minority in the English-speaking world that our opinions on the language are now irrelevant, and we no longer feel confident in our use of English, especially down here in Hampshire, "the Alabama of England."

Here is the issue: when one says that one is going to seed the lawn, one means that seeds will be deposited into the lawn. But when one says that one will seed the grapes, one means that the seeds will be taken out.

How can a single verb have two meanings that are utterly at odds with one another?  Thank you very much for your attention to this matter.

Yours, Pippa Pennybucket 

Nether Wallop, Locks Heath, Chandler's Ford, Bishopstoke, Hampshire, UK

Dear Pippa,

Thanks for the compliments -- um, I guess. 

I'm sorry, but your "issue" is just a dumb question and I'm not going to waste time on it. Besides, I think you are making fun of me.

The Grammer Genious

The mysterious RSVP

Mr. Fairfax Higginbotham of Palm Springs, California, the famous and enormously successful “Wedding Planner To the Stars,” writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

What does “RSVP” stand for? I've been advising clients on the ceremonial customs and obligatory practices regarding the use of RSVP on formal invitations for many years now, but  I have never known what the letters actually represent. When I was younger, nobody seemed to know the answer, and now I can't ask anyone since the question  might reveal ignorance and negatively impact my celebrity status.

Last night I had a dreadful nightmare that I was being interviewed on TV by Ty Pennington, or Mike Rowe, or Ryan Seacrest, and they asked me what RSVP stands for and then shoved the microphone in my face, and there I was looking like an idiot.  Please advise.

Signed, Fairfax Higginbotham – “Wedding Planner To the Stars”

Dear Fairfax,

You can relax because nobody knows what the letters stand for. The use of RSVP is very ancient; it may represent an Akkadian word meaning something like "head-count," and there was an Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for it, shaped like a martini glass.

Many people will hasten to give you some pat explanation, but they are just empty-headed dupes who are passing on folklore that someone told them, usually that the letters represent some "French phrase." First of all, why French? La-de-da! And secondly, the idea is patently absurd on its face, because abbreviations are not used in French. Can you think of any abbreviations in French? Well, there you are then.

Someone will always make up some urban myth ("It's French!") and then all the wannabe know-it-alls clamber onto the bandwagon, and then it becomes something that "everybody knows." Just remember that these are the same sorts of people who will tell you that t-shirts are so called "because they're shaped like the letter T." Yeah, right. ALL shirts are shaped like the Letter T! Duh!

If asked during a TV broadcast, just smile charmingly and say with complete confidence that you have no idea what RSVP stands for.

The Grammer Genious

Academic colleagiality

Professor Francis Xavier Chomsky, Chairman of the Linguistics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the son of the world's foremost authority on cognitive theory Noam Chomsky, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Here at the M.I.T. Linguistics Department we are completely overhauling the undergraduate curriculum, since we have all been totally gob-smacked by the recent appalling and paradigm-changing revelations that have turned the whole field of syntactic holistics and its effect on the gestalt-shift theory on its head.

As part of that overhaul, we are rewriting our undergraduate linguistics primer and its glossary. And logically, in light of your unparalleled knowledge of the field and your sterling reputation, we would very much like to incorporate your own definitions of certain terms, if you could be so kind. They are: a creole, a pidgin, a dialect, and a patois.

Thank you very much, in advance.

Incidentally, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for kindly reviewing the draft of my planned journal piece, “Multi-Modal Evidence for Polyadic Ambiguities in Bi-Transitive Verbals of Puyallup Tlingit,” and for providing your cogent and insightful remarks in the margins, even though the manuscript is now water-stained and smells like bubble-bath powder. 

Yours collegially,

Francis Xavier Chomsky

Noam Chomsky Chair in Cognitive Theory and  Libertarian Socialism

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Francis,

First of all, here are your definitions.

A creole is a tomato, celery, onion, and bell pepper melange poured over rice, often with shrimp or other seafood added.

A pidgin is a kind of dirty gray bird that hangs around parks with statues in them.

A dialect is a kind of joke about people that you can tell they're dumb because they talk funny.

And a patois is a kind of fancy-schmancy potato soup (“patois” means potato in French) that French people usually eat right out of the refrigerator because they're too lazy to warm it up.

Incidentally, there is a kind of book that maybe you haven't heard of that you might think about accessing for your university library. It's called a dictionary.

And second of all,  Francis, it's nice to hear from you again because I have been meaning to return your handkerchief that you so kindly lent me when we went drinking together at Durty Nelly's in Cambridge that night after the Angela Merkel lecture and you spilled a whole bottle of DeKuyper's Apple Pie Schnapps down my pants and down that  sexy little doctoral candidate's cocktail dress and she dropped your iPhone into your Irish Car Bomb.

The Grammer Genious

A prescient logo

Tricia N. Cox, a New York City housewife, writes:


Dear Grammer Genious,
How come the logo on Toyota cars is that little man with the sombrero? What's a sombrero got to do with it? I thought Toyotas were Japanese. My husband says he thinks the Toyota car company was bought by the Baja Fresh restaurant chain, or the other way around and that's why. My husband knows about corporations and stuff.,


Signed, Tricia N. Cox


Dear Tricia,
The Board of Directors of the Toyota Corporation has long been aware that eventually Hispanics will constitute the huge majority of U.S. Population, and that besides everyone here is all crazy about TexMex food and tequila and margaritas and those kinds of stuff. It's just a clever marketing ploy, is all. Your husband's involvement with corporate and management affairs hasn't seemed to give him much insight into these kind of things, I fear.


The Grammer Genious

German beer -- eeuw eeuw

Fräulein Gudrun Schneck, the severe, elderly librarian at the drab, unused Goethe Institute in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, writes:

Lieber Herr Doktor Genious,


I write to you because your famousness for love and Knowledge of German peoples.


Is coming in here to German library of Goethe Institute one man, I feel he is a Polish, is saying he is do research for invention of the beer. Iss very German, the beer, no?  But this one bold dummkopf Polish man he is say the beer it was invention by Poland people was.  Is no true, no? Poland peoples know not to make the Beer, no? The Poland Beer has the taste of the Dischwasser. Please to say me what I to say to this Dummkopf.
Viele Grüße, 
Gudrun


Dear Fräulein Schneck.
Beer was invented in Milwaukee. Everybody knows that. Why are you foreigners always making everything up?

Signed, The Grammer Genious

More cultural dégringolade

Mr. Rollo Tomasi, a historical archivist and heavy equipment mechanic in Arcata, California, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

What is the difference in usage between "to sit" and "to set"?

Signed, Rollo Tomasi


Dear Mr. Tomasi,

Humans sit, and animals set. You sit on the couch, and your dog sets next to you. Why do you think they call them Irish Setters? Can't you put two and two together?
    
The fact that you felt the need to pose this question raises the lamentable suspicion that this simple, everyday rule, formerly known and used by everyone, is no longer being taught in our schools, probably because the so-called "teachers" are ignorant of it themselves. It's just another small quantum in the collapse of our culture and, consequently, of our economy, which is being handed over to China. The Chinese language, incidentally, has no grammer at all. Hmmm.

The Grammer Genious

Skunked

Chester Tumwater of Olympia, Washington, a thoughtful reader of newspapers and magazines, writes:


Dear Grammer Genious,

When did the phrase “to beg the question” change its definition from a precise reference to a specific kind of flaw in logic to a trite cliche misused over and over by stupid people who are completely ignorant of its actual meaning?
  
Signed, Chester Tumwater

Dear Chester,

About the third week of October in 1992. It coincided with the final and ultimate bafflement of the world scientific community at the discovery of “Spooky Interaction” in quantum theory, and the consequent collapse of all logical thinking.

The Grammer Genious

Everything is made plain

Mrs. Callista Gingrich, a simple, confused housewife living in McLean, VA, on tenterhooks, out of her depth, in an uncertain situation, trying to maintain an air of coherency under a great deal of media pressure, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Please explain the difference between “complacent” and “complaisant.” I remember from college back in Iowa that one of them means self-satisfied and the other means willing to please others, but I never can remember which is which. Also, people seem to use them interchangeably nowadays, even though they mean opposite things, sort of. Also, what is a good remedy for an intractable itch? It itches very badly all up and down my spine. My husband refuses to scratch it. He thinks it might be cancer and says “Eeuw, eeuw.” Also, have you read “The Help?” I don't understand what it's supposed to be about -- are they just complaining again? Also, when I hang my souvenir “Hound Dog” key chain I bought at the gift shop at Graceland from the rear view mirror, I always make all the traffic lights (except when Newtie is with me because he makes me take it down). Why is that? Also, what is the Higgs boson? Also, what is this “twitter” I keep hearing about? Also, what the heck was that “Tree of Life” movie supposed to be about anyway?

Signed, Callista (Mrs. Newt) Gingrich

Dear Callista (what a weird name),

The “complacent/complaisant” thing has everybody all balled up, so don't feel like the Lone Ranger. “Experts” who pretend to be explaining those words with a snooty authoritarian air are generally full of crap – they don't know what they're talking about. Just use either word for either meaning. If you're misunderstood, well, so what? Do you care? That's their problem.

As for your skin itch problem, I can't think about that – (Ngognngognngogn!).

Here are the answers to your other questions, in the order that you asked them:

I don't know.

I don't know.

The Higgs boson is a posited but as yet undiscovered subatomic particle that obeys Bose-Einstein statistics and constitutes an excitation of the Higgs field above its ground state.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Signed, The Grammer Genious

A proper cock-up

Mrs. Cherie Blair of Croyden, UK, the sullen and petulant wife of a gormless, failed, has-been British politician, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I'm writing to you because you seem clever and utterly without attitude (for an American).

Why do you lot say “gotten”? There's no such word, you know. I got into an argie-bargie about it with Laura Bush at our garden party a fortnight ago, but the Tonester said I was rat-arsed and kept whispering at me to naff off and shut my cake hole (he's keen to visit Texas again – he wants a bigger cowboy hat). This was after my party had turned into a complete piss-up and everything had gone all pear-shaped, and the old git knob-head was on the pull and had got pissed and fell arse-over-tit into the marquee, and the minger old bint tipped both her kedgeree and her spotted dick down her strawberry creams and onto the silk Persian carpet that the Ayatollah presented to the Tonester back in '86 on one of his secret trips.

Signed, Cherie Blair

Dear Cherie,

It sounds to me like you'd all gotten kinda drunk. So, what was the question again?

The Grammer Genious

Boats Against the Current

Nick Carraway, a bond salesman in West Egg, Long Island, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I have recently learned that my cousin Daisy's husband, unbeknownst to her, is having an extramarital affair and has rented an apartment in the city for his paramour, a common flapper who is the wife of a local garage owner. Should I tell my cousin about this? I hesitate to do that, because if she turns on me I might get dumped by her sexy girlfriend, a leggy golf pro. I am keeping a log of all these furious and exciting developments, and I plan to write a novel about it, since my bond business is in the toilet.

Signed, Nick Carraway, Yale, 1919

Dear Nick,

I bet she already knows. Hang around while she's on the telephone and eavesdrop.

A lubricious situation like this could be a gold mine for you, but don't bother with a novel – that's so 20^th century. Do a screenplay and pitch it to HBO. It sounds like a natural for them. But I recommend that you make up some fictitious title character, to sort of hold the story together. And some commercial tie-in – say, some eyeglass company or something – might boost your bottom line.

If somebody from this zany bunch should ever happen to get killed during any future frenzied shenanigans, then you're in, for sure. Not that I'm suggesting anything.

The Grammer Genious

Another French know-it-all

Mrs. Gladys Manigold, an English teacher at Rydell High School in Turlock, California writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,


How does one pronounce "coup de grace" when speaking English? Is it "koop de grayce", or "koo de grahs"? I'm having an argument with Mademoiselle Lefevre, the French teacher.


Yours,
Gladys Manigold, MA

Dear Mrs. Manigold,

Neither of those is correct. When pronouncing French, only the first three letters of any word are taken into consideration. After that, you just don't pronounce any more of them. So the correct pronunciation is "koo de grah."

Just our of curiosity, I would like to know why you would give any regard at all to some high school French teacher's opinion about anything.

The Grammer Genious

"Whom" is correct. (Duh!)

Mary Jo Shouda, a Krogers check-out clerk of Melvindale, Michigan, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,


I'm writing captions for a slide show of the St. Mary's of Redford High School 40th class reunion. Is this sentence correct? "Here is drunken Colin, head over heals in love with whom I once was." Is that alright?


Yours,
Mary Jo Shouda

Dear Mary Jo,

Anything with "whom" in it is correct by definition. But you shouldn't say "drunken." You should say "impaired." Unless he was really sloppy-smashed, that is.

The Grammer Genious

A Voice from Beyond

Mrs. Titus Mulrooney, a widowed housewife of Pokomoke City, Maryland, writes,

Dear Grammer Genious,

My dear husband Titus passed away two years ago come Valentine's Day. I missed him so badly that last month, on an impulse, I stopped at that spiritual psychic reader and occultist, Madame Ruby, that has the big advertising sign out there on route 13.

She explained her product lines to me, and one of them was a séance, where you get to talk to your dead loved ones at $50 per sitting with guaranteed contact. So I opted for that one, and she shortly put me in contact with Titus.

I asked him what it was like where he was, and he said it was simply lovely and beautiful, with spreading green grasses and cloud-filled blue skies, and he kept talking about cows, about how wonderful the cows were there, and how good looking all the cows were, and cows, cows, cows. So I finally interrupted him to find out what all that cow business was, and that's when I found out that my dear dead husband Titus is now a bull in Argentina.

Mr. Genious, is it right for me to feel a little betrayed by this? I can't help feeling that way, I don't know why. I guess part of it is that I could have maybe better spent that $50 down at the Super Kmart, since I do need some new kitchen curtains. Anyways, it sort of makes me miss him a lot less at least.

Yours,

Fuchsia Mulrooney

Dear Fuchsia,

I think you should forget the whole thing. It is best for you to remember the man as he was before these bovine predilections entered his late brain. Can't think about that! --- Ngoggngoggngoggng!

Also, Super Kmart curtains?? Please.

The Grammer Genious