Road Apples
April 27, 2009


More (or less) essential grammar

By Tim Sanders

It is time once again to review your grammar and see if you can’t learn to speak good. Or well. Or at least better. We here at Grammar Central take our job seriously, and back up our answers with the grammar industry’s most comprehensive guarantee. If, after reading this column, you are not fully satisfied, and if your tomato trees do not produce tomato nuts within a week, we will gladly help you compose a letter confusing enough to obtain a refund from the company which sold you those stupid neutered tomato trees in the first place.


Q: My husband’s Uncle Lester was at the house last night, telling us about a trip he and his fishing partner recently took. He said that it was an overcast day, and the water was muddy, so they got their spinner baits out, put on chartreuse skirts, and caught a boat load of bass. Now I don’t know much about fishing, but something about that didn’t sound right to me. Of course Leon just sat there with that big, dumb grin on his face, nodding like there wasn’t a thing in the world unusual about a full grown man and his “partner” sitting in a boat wearing chartreuse skirts. What am I missing, here?
A: You obviously do not understand fishing terminology. Color is a very important factor, and successful fishermen always pay attention to color. When, for example, the sky is overcast and the water is muddy, chartreuse skirts make perfectly good sense, in that they attract attention, and are easily distinguishable from the surrounding environment. The incidence of fishermen hooking other fishermen in the nose with their lures when both fishermen are wearing chartreuse skirts is extremely low. Problems might arise if they were wearing matching chartreuse spike heels, as those tend to get tangled up in anchor ropes and live bait cans.


Q: Why does the word “lisp” contain an “s?”

A: So that people who have one don’t go around bragging about it.


Q: Which reminds me, I am confused. What is the definition of “gay marriage?”

A: Gay marriage is an oxymoron.


Q: So what is an oxymoron?
A: An oxymoron is a combination of two contradictory terms which one should never place within a mile of each other without wearing protective head gear. Oxymorons include terms like “hospital food,” “legal briefs,” and “politically correct.” Nowadays the most oxymoronic of all oxymorons is probably the term “common sense,” because if there is even a molecule of sense left out there, it certainly is no longer common. According to my Mary M. Webster Underbridged, Homogenized, Interdenominational English Dictionary, 1952 Edition, Revised, “gay” means “happy and carefree,” while “marriage” means “NOT ANYMORE!” The two words always cancel each other out.


Q: I heard somewhere that “gay marriage” makes about as much sense as a “same-sex mixed doubles” tennis match. Do you agree?

A: I think I do.


Q: Speaking of tennis, why do the British spell racket “racquet?”

A: They spell it incorrectly because in 1066 William the Conqueror defeated Harold the Inept in just three sets at Wimbledon. William was a Norman, which was what they called the French back then. (The Normans also spell the American word “lacker” wrong. They spell it “lacquer.”) That is all we know, so don’t ask us anything else. It is time to move on.


Q: My friend Cecil is always talking about “reaching critical mass.” Just what is a critical mass?

A: Since we are not Catholic, we’re unsure, but we think it has something to do with wafer injuries sustained during communion.


Q: Which is proper: “stacked” or “piled?”

A: We prefer “stacked.” The sentence “Hey man, that Rhonda is really piled, dude!” just sounds wrong.


Q: Bob said that last week his dreams were always intense. What did he mean by that?

A: We’re not sure, but we believe it had something to do with camping.


Q: Are the words “waste” and “squander” interchangeable?

A: If you ever went bar-hopping with your buddies and got completely squandered, then yes, they are.


Q: Speaking of which, do you recommend “complete” or “total?” Does it make any difference?

A: It most certainly does. The sentence “Larry just completed his 1948 Buick” takes on a whole new meaning when you substitute “totaled.”


Q: Our English teacher she had us read Hamlet’s something or other, and it made no sense at all. The sentences go on forever, and the punctuality is all wrong, and just when you think you’ve figured something out, he starts jabbering about mortal coils and calamine rubs and bare bodkins and fardels bear and so on and so forth until you finally want to scream. FARDELS BEAR? What was that guy’s problem?

A: “Hamlet” was written by William H. Shakespeare after he’d ingested some bad mushrooms. Most scholars believe that Fardel’s bear was a reference to a popular animal act, and that due to lax public decency regulations, Shakespeare himself had bared his bodkin on stage. If it is any consolation, when your humble columnist was a child, he was so frightened by Shakespeare that it stunted his growth.


Q: Hillary Clinton used the term “shop-worn paradigm” in an address to the Pakistanis the other day. I’ve always admired the word “paradigm,” but have no idea what it means. Could you define it, and use it in a sentence?

A: No. (When I was a child I’d heard about paradigms, and asked my parents if I could have one. They turned me down. They said they weren’t sure what paradigms were, but they knew I’d never keep the cage clean.) Sorry I can’t be of more help.


If this absolutely free service has been helpful, we will accept donations and pass them along to our favorite charity–The Sanders Word Museum. When finished, we hope to have copies of several of the most prominent words in our language on display. We may even invent a few new ones, if finances permit. A collection like that does not come cheap, you know.