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