Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Feb. 11, 2013
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Even More Alabamer Grammar If you have ever visited a zoo and paid close attention, you've noticed that there are some major differences between humans and monkeys. For one thing, we humans are outside the cages, while the monkeys are inside. For another, the monkeys exhibit almost no grammatical skills. As a scientific experiment during a visit to the Birmingham Zoo, I once spent a few minutes trying to explain the difference between an adjective and an adverb to a rhesus monkey. He looked like a fairly intelligent monkey, but halfway through the lesson I could tell he was getting bored. When I asked him to identify the adjective and the adverb in the sentence “Oh look, Jane, see the BIG monkey and how QUICKLY he moves,” his eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed and he reached under his tail for some ammunition and fired off three or four little monkey missiles in my direction. I did not retaliate, which shows another major difference between humans and monkeys. Humans wear pants. This may or may not indicate that good grammar is essential to success. Louis Comfort Tiffany, the famous glass maker and designer, was unique in a couple of ways. For one thing, his middle name was “Comfort,” and for another, he always spelled jewelry “julery.” He claimed the spelling never hurt his career at all. But now it's time for our Q and A session, where actual, bonafide humans ask actual, bonafide grammatical questions and we do our best to answer them. Q: Was “Comfort” really that Tiffany guy's middle name? A: Yes. We believe it was an old Southern family name. And speaking of goofy middle names, everybody knows all about Lady “Bird” Johnson's Bird ancestry, and Joseph “Robinette” Biden's descent from a long maternal line of Robinettes, which are like robins, only smaller. With very little plumage on top. Q: I heard on TV that 75 years ago, in February of 1938 the Disney Studios released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Released them from where? A: We don't know, and besides, that is not a grammar question. Q: All right then, if the plural of “wolf” is “wolves,” and the plural of “scarf” is “scarves,” then why aren't those seven little guys called “dwarves?” A: In their contract with Disney, their agent specified “Dwarfs.” The original title was “Snow White and the Seven Midgets,” but the little fellows put all fourteen of their feet down and said “NO!” In unison. Q: So yesterday I seen this man on TV who said he was a small businessman and small businessmen like him was all going out of business but there was several employees standing around him and if he was small then they must of been tiny because if they was regular sized then he was at least six foot five and probably weighed 280 pounds. He didn't look like no small businessman to me but more like a linebacker. Do you reckon them other people was dwarfs? A: Yes, that's probably it. Q: There's this number you can call, 1-800-WEATHER, which will give you the current weather conditions for your area. It tells the current temperature, the humidity, and barometric pressure, and also the wind velocity and direction. So last week Rhonda she says I should listen to it, and she puts the phone on “speaker,” and I swear the little voice said “winds out of the north at zero miles per hour.” The next three nights they said the same thing. Now answer me this, if wind velocity is zero, don't that mean there ain't no wind? And if there ain't no wind, then how can they say it's out of the north? That's like watching a football game and saying the score is zero to zero with the Vikings in the lead. Is that good English or just plain goofy? How do they know which way the wind is blowing when there ain't no wind? A: Those are way too many questions, but we'll try to answer the last one. They know which way the wind would be blowing, if there was any, by observing which way the weather vane on the barn isn't moving. That kind of thinking is what makes meteorology such an exact science. Q: So what do meteors have to do with the weather? A: If you find one, and it's wet, it's probably raining. Or not, if it landed in a fish pond. Q: I keep hearing “See Alice for a reptile dysfunction.” What's that all about? A: This is a small town newspaper, and we've worked very hard to make this column a family-friendly, G-rated column over the years. That's why we won't dignify your question with a response. Q: I am writing a short story, and here's how it begins. Tell me what you think, and be honest: “Victor stepped slowly up to the taxi. He was sweating profusely, his hands shook and his legs were unsteady. It wasn't exactly the way he'd wanted to meet his mail-order bride, but his pit bull had discovered the doggie treats in his pocket and eaten his pants. Victor's pants, of course. As she paid the driver, Victor noticed almost immediately that if those weren't fish net nylons she was wearing, then it was true what they said about Eastern European women not shaving their legs in the wintertime. 'Ah, Wictor,' she suddenly cried, overcome with emotion. 'Ah, Wanessa,' he blurted–” A: Stop! That is enough. We here at Alabamer Grammar Central know good material when we read it, and we don't have to read all of it, either. That's the kind of stuff that will sell, and we recommend you send it to a publisher immediately. Even if it isn't finished, yet. It will give him joy just reading a few lines of what you've sent to us. God bless you. If you entertain any grammaticulatory questions that nobody else seems interested in, please send them to us. We specialize in answering questions nobody else can answer. Or would bother to answer, anyway. |