Words, Words, Words

Your Mother Tongue and Stuff

Did you know there are people out there who speak more than one language?  Astonishing, I know.  Personally, I am in awe of these people. When I was a wee lad, my sainted mother reprimanded me for mocking a Chinese woman’s heavily accented English.  She said, “That woman speaks two languages.  How many do you speak?” Oh, the shame, the shame.  Still, it didn’t motivate me much. I never approached fluency in any language other than English. Even thoughI studied French for three years, German for two, and Italian for about a year; and even though I know enough conversational Klingon to safely order Bloodwine and Gagh from any starbase between here and Rura Penthe; I still have to rely primarily on English to communicate my pitiably monoglot ideas.  Well, English coupled with myriad finely tuned  facial expressions and a battery of not so subtle hand gestures.

If you learned English as a second language, or if you are able to watch the films of Ingmar Bergman without the little words at the bottom, then the mistakes you make in my language are forgivable and you have my blessing to skip this section. If, however, English is your first language, and you still haven’t come close to mastering it, then read on, Macduff. 

You people don’t seem to give two shits about your inability to accurately express yourselves in our native tongue.  And I’m not talking about the mind-bending complexities of the future continuous tense or dangling pluperfect gerunds either.  No sir.  I’m talking about simple, day-to-day English. Folks don’t talk good no more.  Listen, I’m not suggesting that we all need to return to a time when some creativity-stifling grammarian scolded us for wanting “to boldly go.” Quite the contrary, I am a great lover of language. I admire all manner of words and word usage.  So I’m not suggesting you limit yourself to some narrow minded, outmoded, fancy shmancy grammar rules – only that you start giving a teensy weensy damn about the language you already use every day.  And you can start by taking note of these oft made transgressions and misused expressions.  Why not take a tiny step toward the unambiguous in self-expression?  Let me help you.  I beg you, let me help.

The Podium.

Let’s start by acknowledging that a podium is not a lectern is not a podium.  That tall skinny structure with the slanted top from behind which speakers make speeches is a lectern, not a podium.  A podium is a raised platform or dais upon which a lectern is commonly placed.  Get it?  The thing you stand ON is the PODIUM.  The thing you stand BEHIND is the LECTERN. Are cars the same as roads?  Are shoes the same as feet?  Are fuselages the same as ailerons?  Of course they aren’t.  Just because you don’t know the difference between this thing and that thing, does not mean that there isn’t a difference.  You can’t just start burbling words willy-nilly in the hope you might actually “infinite monkey theorem” your way into a sensibly expressed thought. Words have actual meanings. 

Your and You’re.

And another thing, Clueless Joe: your is not you’re is not yore; and their is not there is not they’re; and yay is not yea is not yeah is not ya.   This is simply not as difficult as your atrophied brain is trying to make it.  Set aside ten damn minutes during your day of poignant and fulfilling tweeting to learn what can be achieved with actual non-trivial communication.  Here is your cheat sheet.  Stop making these mistakes. 

Your: rhymes with LORE and means it belongs to you

Yore: rhymes with LORE and means long ago

You're: rhymes with LURE and means you are

Their: rhymes with PAIR and means it belongs to them

There: rhymes with PEAR and means not here

They're: rhymes with PARE and means they are

Yay: rhymes with HAY and means hooray

Yea: rhymes with HAY and means yes


Yeah: sounds like the "a" in HAT and means yes


Ya: rhymes with HUH and means you

I and Me.

I understand your confusion with this next grammar gaffe.  It’s not your fault, really.  You make it because your parents corrected you every time you opened your mouth to tell them about your day.  Sadly, your parents were wrong about 50% of the time.  They corrected you so often that you don’t even trust your own instincts anymore.  Damn them.  Let’s eradicate some of the dishevelment, shall we?  I am, of course, referring to the ever troublesome “I versus me” conundrum.  I know, Pumpkin, it’s a real puzzler for you.  I shall endeavor to elucidate.

The proper use of the pronoun “I” is as follows:

Michael and I went to the Liberace estate sale.

This is how we check its “correctness”.  We simply break the sentence in half and test both parts.

Michael went to the Liberace estate sale. (makes sense)

I went to the Liberace estate sale. (makes sense)

Michael and I went to the Liberace estate sale. (still makes sense.)

The proper use of the pronoun “me” is as follows:

The docent sold treasures to Michael and me.

This is how we check its “correctness”.  We simply break the sentence in half and test both parts.

The docent sold treasures to Michael. (makes sense)

The docent sold treasures to me. (makes sense)

The docent sold treasures to Michael and me. (still makes sense)

So, let’s see if your brain works.  Is the following sentence right or wrong?

She bought presents for Chris and I.

It’s so wrong you ought to be a settin’ in the front yard on the bench seat of your old Ford pickup and a strummin’ on the old banjo.

Break the sentence in half and test both parts.

She bought presents for Chris. (makes sense)

She bought presents for I. (makes no god damn sense at all)

The sentence should be expressed like this:

She bought presents for Chris and me.

See what I mean?  If you had said this around the dinner table when you were growing up, your ignorant but well-meaning parents would have said, “Chris and I.”  And you would have parroted, “Chris and I” to ensure you received your favorite dessert blob of lime green Jell-O with maraschino cherries trapped inside.  Your parents ruined you, and in turn, society.  They are not going to fix you. It’s too late.  Fix yourself. 

 I Weep for the Future 

Yesterday, I overheard two young women talking about a boy they liked.  Now this, in and of itself, does not usually trigger the “prophetic lachrymal event” in me – not usually.  It wasn’t even that these girls were costumed like catholic schoolgirls turned prostitute and sporting enough make up and hair spray to scare Bim-Bom the circus clown all the way back to Moscow. No sir, and no ma’am. It was their grammar.  This is what I heard and wish I hadn’t.

I seen Anthony’s truck at 7-Eleven so we pulled over, and me and her got out to see if he might of still been there.

Cue weeping.  Where to begin?  I can’t help with you with “seen”.  That is a simple case of not knowing your verb conjugations, and those must be memorized.  I see Anthony; I saw Anthony; I have seen Anthony many times.  Memorize.  “Me and her” is just sad.  It sounds like some kind of pronoun-heavy, post-apocalyptic Newspeak jibber jabber. All you have to do is test the sentence as we did above.

Break the sentence in half and test both parts.

Me and her got out.

Me got out. (makes no sense)

Her got out. (makes no sense)

Therefore “Me and her got out” makes no fucking sense.  Therefore, you have to stop talking like this.  You have to think, people.

I got out.  (makes sense)

She got out (makes sense)

I and she got out. (still makes sense)

You could say “I and she got out,” but “She and I got out” is even better.

Now, let’s look at “might of.” It makes no sense at all.  What the little costumed tramp meant to say was, “he might’ve.”  It is a contraction of “might have.”  If you fail to enunciate when you speak, “might of” sounds a lot like “might’ve,” and most folks won’t notice.  But if you don’t know the reason “might of” is wrong, you run the risk of putting it in writing.  If you make the mistake of putting “He might of still been there” down on paper, or e-mail, or what have you, you will be branded a bird-brained dunderhead. On the upside, you may be offered your own TV series following The Jersey Shore.

Who and Whom.

Let me start by saying that if you intend to use whom every time it is correct to use whom, you are going to sound like the self important offspring of Frasier Crane and Miss Jean Brody.  Nobody, not even really smart people, say whom every time they should.  I’m going to simplify the whole thing for you, and then you can go along your merry way.  I’m just going to skip trying to explain the whole “who is the subject” and “whom is the object” mishegas, because I don’t care enough to type that much, and you don’t care enough to read that much.  This is all you ever need to know about whom:  use it after a preposition.  That’s it.  That’s all you need ever worry about. 

If you are reading this and thinking, “Fuck this guy.  I don’t know what a preposition is,” then calm down.  I am getting to that.  Prepositions are words that describe location.  There are about 150 of them in English, and you already know all of them, so relax.  Here a few: above, about, after, among, before, below, between, from, in, of, through, without.  So, when you are using these words, chances are whom is the word you want.

So, imagine the words about whom, after whom, from whom, through whom, and without whom as being joined, like a couple.  When you hear or say a preposition, just know that WHOM may be looming.

For example, if someone says to you:

This money is for you.  It’s from one of the guys in that car over there.

You would ask:

From whom?

From is a preposition, so you say whom.

For example, if someone says to you:

One of those guys in the car is talking smack about a friend of yours.

You would ask:

Smack?  About whom?

About is a preposition, so you say whom.

For example, if someone says to you:

I was in the 82^nd Airborne.  I served under a brave commanding officer.

You would ask:

Under whom did you serve?

Under is a preposition, so you say whom.

See how fucking easy it is?  If you are using a preposition, say whom.  Skip all the other rules about whom because, really, who wants to come across like that?  Keep it simple, but don’t sound like a simpleton.

Supposedly.

Moses supposes his toeses are Roses, but Moses supposes erroneously.  And so do you.  I am referring to your erroneous use of the word suppose.  Three times in one day, I heard various hoople heads say “supposebly.” Suppose-Ubb-Lee? Make an effort people.  I’ll say it again -- you can’t blithely spin the roulette wheel of clicks, plosives, and diphthongs in the vain hope an actual word might magically tumble forth.  Suppose-car-rake is not a word; suppose-radar-gelatin is not a word; suppose-peapod-chiffarobe is not a word; and although technically supposably is a real word, it doesn't mean what you think it means.  Supposably means able to be supposed.  Supposedly means assumed to be the case. Nobody uses supposably.  NOBODY.  Never say it.  Kill it. SupposEDly is the word you want, and I shall tell you why.

Suppose is a VERB, and it means to assume. 

For example, if, while climbing Everest, your Sherpa says to you:

I am having difficulty breathing, and I need your help.

You might say:

I suppose you want some of my bottled oxygen.

See? I assume you want some of my bottled oxygen.

Years later, while drinking in your favorite pub, someone asks why your Sherpa was
never seen or heard from again.

You answer:

He supposed I would share my bottled oxygen.

I suppose.  He supposed.  Suppose and supposed are both VERBS.  Easy peasy.   

Where is starts to get a tad confusing is when supposed (note the ED on the end) turns into and ADJECTIVE or an ADVERB.  Just as blessed can be pronounced BLESS-UHD when it becomes an adjective, so too can supposed be pronounced SUPPOSE-UHD when it becomes an adjective.  

And when supposed (note the ED on the end) gains an “LY” to become the adverb supposedly, we pronounce it SUPPOSE-UHD-LEE.

For example:

Lindsay Lohan was seen wearing stolen jewelry that was supposedly loaned to her for some event.

The jewelry was assumed to be on loan to her.

Suppose can also mean “required to”. 

For example:

Am I supposed to care about my Sherpa’s lack of oxygen?

Talkin’ good is not so hard, so make an effort, hoople heads.

Healthy and Healthily.

Remember a few thousand words ago when I told you I didn’t think everybody needed to be a grammarian?  I still think that.  However, you MUST know the difference between these four parts of speech if you are going to communicate with anything approaching clarity: 

1)    Noun – a person, place, thing, or idea

2)    Adjective – gives information about the noun

3)    Verb – an action or state of being

4)    Adverb – gives information about the verb

That’s it.  Just four lousy things.  Unless you are a complete simpleton, you can distinguish between these four things. And really, it’s often just TWO things, because they like to travel in pairs. Nouns and adjectives go together.  Verbs and adverbs go together.  Say it with me. “Nouns and adjectives” and “verbs and adverbs.”

For example:

The sailor proudly wears his Navy uniform.

Sailor (person/NOUN)

proudly (describes how he wears uniform/ADVERB)

wears (action/VERB)

his (describes uniform/ADJECTIVE)

Navy (describes uniform/ADJECTIVE)

uniform (thing/NOUN)

I know that "proudly wears" is a split infinite, but I think that "rule" is passe.

That’s it, people.  You’ve got nouns and adjectives.  You’ve got verbs and adverbs.  

And it gets even EASIER.  Adverbs (the things that go with verbs) frequently end in “LY”.  Seriously.  If it ends in “LY,” there is a really good chance it’s an adverb.  There are exceptions to how nouns and adjectives and verbs and adverbs play together, but I’m not getting in to that. There are also exceptions to the “LY” thing, but they will just confuse you, so I’m not getting in to that either. 

I’m not here to confuse you.  I am trying to help you say what you mean.  

Which brings me to the source of my pain:  the word HEALTHY.  Healthy ends in a “Y,” 
not an “LY.”

The word HEALTHY is an ADJECTIVE.

The word HEALTHY is not an ADVERB.

There.  I said it.  Now I will explain it.

You mustn’t say, “I try to eat healthy.”  Oh my god.  It kills me even to type it.  EAT is a VERB.  If you want to describe how you try to eat, you need an ADVERB.  “I try to eat healthy” is like saying, “I try to eat shiny” or “I try to eat green.”  You need an ADVERB.

The word you want is HEALTHILY. 

Let me explain why you should give a shit about this. “I try to eat healthy” means the food itself is in good health, which is always good, but not what you meant.  You meant that you try to eat foods that are good for your health.  And if you try to eat in a manner conducive to good health, you must say, “I try to eat healthily.”

If you also want to eat foods that are FULL of nutrients, then you want to eat healthful foods. 

If the food is in good health, it is healthy food. (healthy/adjective)

If the food is full of nutrients, it is healthful food.  (healthful/adjective)

If you eat food that is both healthy (in good health) and healthful (good for your health), then you are trying to eat healthily (in a manner conducive to good health).  You could eat healthfully as well, but let’s not make it confusing.

Your mnemonic device is this:

I eat healthy and healthful foods.  I eat healthily.

Saying “I try to eat healthy” is wrong, and it causes me pain.  Stop it.