Road Apples
April 19, 2010
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More Alabamer Grammar By Tim Sanders Here at the Alabama Grammar Institute, which we affectionately call the Alabama Grammar Institute, we all look forward to a day when these columns will no longer be necessary. That, of course, will depend on when Spanish becomes our national language. We figure it will be sometime around August. Until then, we’ll try our darnedest to answer your grammar questions, many of which we’ve contributed and edited ourselves on account of our official title of Contributing Editor.Q: Our teacher she said Ernest Hemingway was a writer and his third wife divorced him because he had grown old and bit her. I asked her how come he was to do that and she said do what and I said bite her and she sent me to the principal’s office. Why? A: We think it was because you confused “bitter” with “bit her.” Q: Huh? A: Never mind. Q: Our least boy Orly he come home with a note from scool that said he ort to study on Phonics so I wrote his teacher back an told her he spent two hole days in Chicargo last year an didnt learn nothing so sincet he wasnt likely to go out west to Aridzone why didnt he study Chatanuga insted which is a town he has been in seven times alredy an then they sent a man from the scool bored over to talk to me an Doreen an Doreen she got her back up an took after him with a fly swater an run him off. A: So what is your grammar question? Q: It compleately sliped my mind. A: Concentrate. Q: Ok then speaking of Aridzone how do you spell Alba Kirkee? A: We are proud members of the Cherokee County Chapter of the Northeast Alabama Ad Hoc Journalists Union and Glee Club, and our contract says that spelling that word is not in our job classification. Whenever we feel the need to mention that city, we outsource the spelling to Norm, a member of the New Mexico Journalists Union. For a small fee, Norm is always happy to email a spelling, which is usually very close to correct. At least it looks that way to us. Q: Last week I actually read the following line in a BBC article: “Belching huge columns of black soot and ash, one geologist says that Iceland’s Eyiafiallaiokull volcanic eruption could last for several months.” Does that sound reasonable to you? A: No, the name Eyiafiallaiokull does not sound reasonable to us, but we here at Grammar Central all agree that any geologist who belches huge columns of black soot and ash should be taken seriously. Q: I had a Literature teacher in high school named Mrs. Katz. She was a three-pack-a-day smoker. Sometimes in the middle of class she’d start hacking and snorting and belching black soot and ash, and have to run off to the teachers’ lounge where they kept the cigarette machine and the oxygen tanks. One day she was reading “Old Ironsides” to the class when she went into one of her coughing fits. She’d just finished the first line about “Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high!” and pointed toward the ceiling when she collapsed and just sat there on the floor, rattling and wheezing. It was awful. A:Take it from me, you dodged a bullet. The next two stanzas, which dealt largely with “bloody decks,” “harpies of the shore” and “shattered hulks,” were even awfuller. Q: You mean “more awful?” A: I mean “awfuller.” You know, in the consumptive sense. Q: My wife insists on spelling “fajita” with an “h.” I told her she was wrong, and she threw one of her tantrums and stomped off into the hall closet. My golf clubs are in there. What should I do? A: First, try telling her how silly the word “hajita” sounds. If that doesn’t work, you may have to take up tennis. Q: Speaking of which, who first wrote “My wife and I had words the other day, but I didn’t get to use mine?” A: I don’t know, but when he sobered up I’ll bet he regretted it. Q: My cousin he has a dairy farm and yesterday he said something which stuck in my head about how he grabbed a milk cow by the holding area and took her to a stall. I didn’t want to sound stupid, so instead of asking him, I’ll ask you. Where is a cow’s holding area, and would you advise grabbing a cow there? A: Our guess would be that on a cow, the holding area is just above the drain pipe. We certainly are not dairy experts here at Grammar Central, but we’d advise avoiding that end of the anima altogether. Q: Could you explain when I should use “between,” and when I should use “among?” A: We prefer “among,” but you must use it carefully. INCORRECT: “No, Bob, I ain’t got no idea why Maria is holding her purse among her knees thataway?” CORRECT: “Just among you, me, and my tapeworms, Bob, nobody cares about Maria or her purse. But all them knees do worry us, some.” Q: I’ll bet you can’t use “obsequious” and “rostrum” in the same sentence? A: Certainly I can: “After having that obsequious cyst removed from his rostrum, Earl was able to sing all five verses of ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ at the Karaoke bar without sitting on a cushion.” Q: Are you sure that usage is correct? A:You didn’t mention the “correct’ part. It is a sentence, though. It has subjects and predicaments and underlying clauses and propositions and everything. And I don’t like to brag, but it’s also very punctual. If you have serious grammar questions, feel free to send them in. At the risk of tooting our own horn, we are bilingual ... if you count Pig Latin, that is. |