How would an English teacher know?

Terry Ratigan, a petulant, assertive, pimpled, skinny, smelly, tatted, and facially pierced would-be tough guy at L. Ron Hubbard Middle School in New Baltimore, Michigan, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,


We had to right "How I spent my summer vacation" for Mrs. Echol's's 7th grade English. I wrote how I spent it, but she didn't like it, even though that's how I really spent it so who is she not to like it? I didn't like it either.


Here's what pisses me off, she didn't like when I said "The cops must of saw us." She said its wrong, even though they really must of or else why did they bust us? She wasn't even there, so what is she talking about? Me and Cliff might put sugar in her gas tank in the parking lot.


Terry Ratigan
L. Ron Hubbard Middle School
New Baltimore, Michigan

Dear Terry,

Don't put sugar in her gas tank. It won't help. Putting sugar in English teachers' gas tanks just makes them worse than ever. In fact, the prune-faced old ones who write meaningless scrawls in red pencil all over your papers are mostly that way because they got sugar put in their gas tanks in the parking lot during their careers.

English teachers are just randomly opinionated people that you have to get past. Don't pay any attention to anything they say. They just make rules up and it NEVER makes any sense. If you think the cops must of saw you, then they probably did.

The Grammer Genious

An Academic Incident Involving Poutine

Dr. Peaches Barkowitz of Saint-Hyacinthe-sur-Richelieu-de-Veaudreuil-Beauharnois, Quebec, a renowned cognitive scientist, analytic philosopher, and linguistic theorist, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,


We here in Quebec have great respect for our more superiorly educated betters in the great and powerful United States, and especially for you personally in light of your sterling, unsurpassed, and well-deserved reputation. We hope you can shed light on an argy-bargy we have been having at meeting after meeting of our department. To show you the depths of rancor to which this dispute has sunken, in sad fact at the most recent meeting poutine was thrown. You can imagine what that looked like, strewn across an academic gown.


Here is the claim at issue: Were any of the many words borrowed into English from Semitic languages originally constructed on the basis of Semitic taxonomy employing finite-state transducer algorithms?


Yours, 
Dr. Peaches Barkowitz
Chair, Department of Linguistics 
École des Hautes Études Linguistiques
Saint-Hyacinthe-sur-Richelieu-de-Veaudreuil-Beauharnois
Quebec H2J-1W8, Dominion of Canada

Dear Dr. Peaches,

I'm pretty sure Semitic means terroristic, so if any of those words ever somehow got into our language, you can be sure they have been flushed out and gotten rid of by now and probably sent to Gitmo. Nine-eleven changed everything, you know. Or maybe you DON'T know, you being way up there in Canada and all.

The Grammer Genious

PS. Do you people have Philly cheese steaks way up there in Canada? Maybe you should switch to them. They would hold together a little better than poutine when thrown.

The Definition of Awesomeness

Zip Tigh, a dog-fighting and fantasy football enthusiast from Baltimore, Maryland, writes:

Dear Grammer Genios,

Me and my friend Jason seen Batlle Los Angilos, it was awesome. Did you see it?

signed, Zip Tigh

Dear Mr. Tigh,

I viewed that film at a special showing held for celebrity bloggers last month in Jackson Hole. The pre-release buzz had prepared me for something special, and yet the sophistication, literacy, and intellectual brilliance of this modern Iliad completely took me aback. Aaron Eckhart out-Brandoed Brando with his breathtaking, layered performance. Predictably, the drive-by philistines who fancy themselves “movie critics” have, to a man, panned the film, having utterly missed its clever, subtle, and ironic homage to Somerset Maugham and Tennessee Williams. This is a film for the ages – awesome indeed, in the full meaning of the word.

The Grammer Genious

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.

This guy can't talk normal

Mr. Jean-Baptiste Drouillard, who runs a rent-it store in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, and has never ventured into the U.S. before because he is afraid of the primitive health care system here, writes:

Mon cher Génie Grammaire,

Ma femme et moi avons l'intention de aller aux États-Unis pour faire des courses. Nous voulons acheter de bacon et de fromage, parce qu’on ne peut pas obtenir ces choses au Canada. Et nous aimerions aussi obtenir du sirop d'érable. Le sirop d'érable canadien a le goût du poisson.

Pourriez-vous nous suggérer quelqu'un bon magasin dans le New York où l'on peut acheter de telles choses? Nous vous remercions beaucoup.

Jean-Baptiste et Octavie Drouillard

Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec

P.S. Est-il vrai que vous avez des punaises dans votre pays?

Dear Jean whatever,

What the hell do you think this is, the United Nations? If you want to get along on this continent, LEARN THE LANGUAGE! Your letter makes no sense at all, froggy.

The Grammer Genious

The Tea Party vs. Jimi Hendrix

Danny Crook of Guthrie Center, Iowa, who writes and sells term papers and master's theses on the Internet and plays bass with the grunge band Worst Case Scenario in Des Moines on weekends, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious.

I am a huge, huge fan of Jimi Hendrix. He’s mostly all I listen to, and of course I’ve memorized everything he ever wrote because I've heard it all about a million times. My favorite line of his is in Purple Haze, where he says “Scuse me while I kiss this guy.” I love its charming gayness.

So imagine my shock and surprise when I went to a website that's supposed to have his lyrics, and they had changed them to “Scuse me while I kiss the sky.” What the hell??! That sounds weird! What he said was a clear as a bell, and everybody knows what it was. I don’t understand why they’re trying to change it now. What do you think?

Signed, Danny Crook

Dear Danny,

This is clearly part of the Tea Party Movement’s campaign to remove all traces of gayness from the arts, and to recharacterize all the gay icons of the past and pretend that they were all straight -- Sinatra,  Liberace, Johnny Cash -- all the well-known gay icons.

I agree that the words he said are so plain and clear, and so well known, that trying to change this bit of “charming gayness,” as you call it, into something other than what it manifestly is, is just plain silly. The best proof of that is the fact that “Scuse me while I kiss this guy” gets a quarter of a million hits on Google. Case closed! That’s why the Tea Party is not going to get away with this.

The Grammer Genious

Finally, a smart person!

Mary Ellen Patterson, the assistant manager of West End Bowling in Minot, North Dakota, and a real crowd pleaser during Friday night karaoke at Gino’s Lounge in the same strip mall, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

What’s the difference between an occultist, an oculist, an ocularist, an ophthalmologist, an optometrist, and an optician? There’s a case of Bud Lite riding on this.

Signed, Mary Ellen Patterson

Dear Ms. Patterson,

I see your point – and a very clever one it is indeed! All of those names designate people who help us to see things more clearly.

Why do we have so many different words that mean essentially the same thing? I don’t know, Ms. Patterson, it's a real waste, isn't it? You’ve posed a good question, made all the more astute by your not having overtly stated it. I wish all my correspondents were up to your level.

The Grammer Genious

Hurray! Pivoted Stochastic Instantiations!

Rutherford B. Hayes McDonald, the Chairman of the Board of the humungous multinational arms conglomerate Weapons Systems Я Us, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Our firm is currently ramping up and rolling out an open source-based cloud data storage and processing solution, embodying an innovative paradigm of distributed, self-organizing structures in analytics, employing stochastic processes to incorporate pivoted values thereby providing a multi-level infrastructure of interconnected testbeds of interdisciplinary, heterogeneous, scaled scenarios for tailored solutions to produce context-based instantiations of self-management concepts with roll-up and drill-down operations, leveraging stakeholder expectations for transformational algorithms, mechanisms, and multivariate, quantitative protocols.

We have worked hard to make that description as clear and simple as we could, without being inaccurate or misleading. But, surprisingly, we are encountering comprehension barriers with our potential customers, which is causing us to wonder if there is some way that we might describe this product more cogently. We would therefore be grateful for any suggestions you might give us in that regard.

Collegially yours,

Rutherford B. Hayes McDonald, Chairman and CEO

Weapons Systems Я Us

McLean, Virginia

Dear Ruthie,

Frankly, you took the very words right out of my mouth. If the customers can’t understand that, they’re not worthy of the product. What, they don't know how to use a dictionary? What do they want from you, baby-talk? I say, screw ‘em.

The Grammer Genious

The Grammer Genious on Classical Music

William Jefferson Slade ("the Grammer Genious") has kindly produced a little music appreciation lesson, as a cultural benefit for all his blog fans, and to aid them in their personal growth.

A rather objective case of an overly passive voice

Jade Bernadette Panagiotopoulos-McGillicuddy, an 11^th grader at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Our AP English teacher Miss Medzigian made us write college application essays for practice, the kind you have to write to get into college. I wrote mine about like that I was a dog and I was going to go to college with my human, and what would college be like for my human and I, and what would I want to get from the college experience as a dog, ecsetera. I thought that up myself. You have to take some weird, imaginational attitude like that in your essay to get into a descent college. It’s title is “College For My Master And I”. Nobody helped me write it, my nosey mom wanted to but I wouldn’t even let her look at it because it’s none of her business.

Anyway I spell checked it and everything and I thought it looked real good and I turned it in, and when I got it back old Medzigian said “the pronouns confused the objective with the subjective,” and there was “too much passive voice” in it. I have *ZERO* idea what she is talking about. Do you?

Signed, Jade Panagiotopoulos-McGillicuddy

Dear Jade,

Sure I understand, Jadey! Words mean what they mean! Look them up!

By “objective,” your teacher must have meant that the dog in the story objected too much about something, and also what the dog said was too subjective and not factual enough. And she thinks the dog’s voice was too passive sounding. If your teacher would prefer a more assertive voice, then change the dog into a cat! There ya go! Problem solved!

Use your DICTIONARY, Jadey. It solves everything!

The Grammer Genious

Glennbeck, Maine

Bill Colly, an unemployed real estate salesman on Medicaid, and the head of the Tea Party Movement in Bangor Maine, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

I am the chairman of the Tea Party Movement here in Bangor, Maine. There is a rumor going around here that Bangor was named after Bangalore, India, except the people that originally named it spelled it wrong. If that's true, we're going to run candidates to change the name of the city, probably to Glennbeck, Maine. Is it true that Bangor was named after some foreign place?

Signed,

William Colly, Chairman, Tea Party Movement of Glennbeck, Maine (formerly Bangor)

Dear Bill,

Of course it's true. Everybody knows that. Why, it's even on the internet. I'm surprised you thought you should even ask. Now go out there and kick ass!

The Grammer Genious.

A pitiable unintentional poet

The Grammer Genious received the following letter anonymously, from a sad victim of that tragic, newly recognized mental illness that compels its poor victims to couch any expression of opinion in Shakesperian sonnet form. 

Dear Grammer Genious,

Help me if you would. My wife keeps nagging me about the way I talk to her. So give me, if you could, your thoughts, and let the chips fall where they may. She says that every time I talk to her, it sounds as if I think I’m some great poet. She claims that rhymes seem always to occur in such a way that, although I don’t know it, I’ve made a poem. In a way, I’m flattered that she’d think I’m that smart. As if I’d ever have any notion how to write a “sonnet”.  I’ve never written anything that mattered.  For sure she ought to know I’m not that clever.  I don’t know what put that bee in her bonnet.

Signed, the Unintentional Poet.

Dear Unintentional Poet,

Roses are red, violets are blue. You have our deepest sympathy.. um,  bada-boo, bada-boo. Or something like that.

Signed, the Grammer Genious.

A canine epitaph

Mrs. Caesar Rodney du Pont IV, the famous waste-management heiress and leading social figure of Wilmington, Delaware, writes:

Dear Grammer Genious,

Recently, our dear and beloved bloodhound Leslie passed away suddenly. Caesar and I are utterly devastated. A treasured family member for many years, Leslie had a remarkable artistic sensibility and a unique and well-known sense of humor, despite the continual, lifelong burden of humiliation at having his gender misconstrued by ignorant people due to his ostensibly ambiguous given name. In addition to keeping the du Pont family larder well supplied with game, this extraordinary canine's unsurpassed olfactory skill was responsible for the apprehension and incarceration of more than 480 fugitive miscreants in three states.

In early January, Leslie's earthly remains were temporarily interred in a local pet cemetery with a moving High Episcopalian ceremony, pending the design and realization of his own sarcophagus to be erected in the ancestral family plot of the du Ponts. My husband and I have commissioned the celebrated Italian marble sculptor Finocchio di Balducci with the tomb's design and execution, and we are now searching for an appropriate poetic sentiment to be carved upon its base. That is the reason for our writing to you. As a person of broad belletristic knowledge and famously exquisite literary taste, you would be our choice to proffer suggestions for a befitting epitaph. Our gratitude would be most profound for any help you might give us in this our hour of deep sorrow.

Yours very sincerely,

Cunegonde Felicity du Pont (Mrs. Caesar Rodney du Pont IV)

The Boxwoods

Wilmington, Delaware

Dear Mr. and Mrs du Pont,

The sentiment that springs immediately to my mind for her would be a version of Edgar Allen Poe's "To Helen," with certain modifications."Leslie, thy beauty is to me / Like those Nicean barks of yore..." I cannot think of a more appropriate poem for your dear departed bitch, particularly in light of the artistic sensibilities that you say she exhibited during her lifetime.. For example, where the original has "thy hyacinth hair," the version for Leslie would read, "thy hyacinth ears." "The agate lamp within thy hand" would become "The agate lamp hanging from thy muzzle." And so forth.

With deepest sympathy,

The Grammer Genious

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