Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Aug. 22, 2011

Defending Alabamer Grammar


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I have received more than a few (nineteen) emails and less than a few (three) actual letters complaining about the quality of the extremely educational, semi-regular Alabamer Grammar columns, which are extremely educational and appear semi-regularly. There are two major complaints, which are, and I paraphrase here:
 

1. You don’t know [Bad Word beginning with S–] about grammar, and

2. If you knew anything about grammar, you would have written a book by now.


In response, I would simply say:


1. I do too know [Bad Word beginning with S–] about grammar, and

2. The following paragraph is torn from my upcoming book, “Bosoms in Turmoil.” Both the beginning and the ending of the book have yet to be finished, but the central paragraph, which I have strategically placed right in the middle of the book, is complete. It is chock full of metaphors and similes, and punctuation marks, and reads as follows:

“Miranda ran into the wheat field, looked over her shoulder seductively, and caught the powerful, 6-foot 4-inch Jason’s eye, not unlike the way Willie Mays ran into deep centerfield at the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series, looked seductively over his shoulder, and caught the powerful, 450-foot shot hit by Vic Wertz. Thoughts flew in and out of Jason’s head like flies investigating an old watermelon rind, and his heart pounded in his chest like a tennis shoe in a clothes dryer. They ran toward each other, loins throbbing, and breasts heaving (in Miranda’s case, at least). The two lovers met just as the huge, red, 815 Series International Harvester combine bore down on them, as combines are wont to do, and suddenly there was a horrific, blood curdling–”

The dash is there for dramatic effect, and serves to let the reader know that it will be another chapter before he learns whether there will be enough left of Jason and Miranda to keep their body parts throbbing and heaving, or whether they will have to be replaced by the throbbing, heaving body parts of Ned and Phyllis, who always make a point of avoiding wheat fields during harvest time. I am proud of that paragraph, and it is obviously the kind of stylish writing I can build a book around. And if my readers will only attempt to learn grammar rather than quibble about my credentials, one day they’ll be able to write like that, too.

In the meantime, here are some grammar questions sent in by actual readers whose names have been withheld on advice from our legal department.


Q: The blurb at the top of last week’s front page describes that week’s Road Apples column this way: “a damned yankee damns the yankees.” My brother-in-law is a yankee, and when I read the column I was disappointed. There was no yankee damning there at all; just the normal silliness. Explain the blurb, and also the phrase “damned yankee.”

A: The blurb was penned by Post Editor Scott Wright. In mid-July he traveled to Chicago as punishment for something or other, and since that time he’s been stomping around the office, flinching, throwing his arms into the air, and shouting “DAMNED YANKEES, DAMNED YANKEES!” usually following by “THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!” He will not explain what happened up there, but that Chicago trip probably has something to do with the “damned yankee” redundancy in that blurb. As to the phrase itself, most Yankee grammarians agree that the “Yankee” in both “damned Yankee” and “damn Yankee” should be capitalized. Yankees who visit the South for a few days and then go back where they belong are simply ‘Yankees.” On the other hand, Yankees who visit the South and remain there for years and years are considered “damn Yankees.” Some communities send trucks around spraying for them in the summer.


Q: My teacher she said somebody name of Dee Cart said “I think therefore I am.” Therefore he am what?

A: Descartes (pronounced “FRO-mahj”) was a 17th Century French philosopher, and his statement “I think, therefore I am” meant absolutely nothing, due to the fact that he was a 17th Century French philosopher.

Q: So was he, or did he just think he was?

A: Was he what?


Q: Was he whatever he was thinking about?

A: French philosophers spent half their work week thinking about the meaning of life, and the other half thinking about how to eat snails without gagging. On the weekends they curled up with a bottle of fine, aged Pepto Bismol and rested.


Q: I read this in a Montgomery paper: ALABAMA’S NEW LAW WOULD CUT ILLEGAL IMMIGANTS IN HALF. Isn’t that a little drastic?

A: We believe deportation would suffice.


Q: Momma she told me she just killed her a roach bug with a shoe and I asked her how come it only had one and she said I didnt understand plane English and she went and got the flyswatter and slapped me upside the head and when I hollered Meemaw she come out from the toilet and said Lurlene you orta not do the boy thataway and Momma she said old woman you get yerself back on the commode and then one thing led to another and Daddy he had to turn the spray hose from the sink on the both of them which was on the floor rolling around and biting and scratching like always by which I mean the both of them not the spray hose and–
 
A: I’ll bet there’s a question on the way, isn’t there?


Q: What is it?

A: No, that’s my question: What’s yours?


Q: Okay then how come that roach bug only had one shoe? What went with the other five?

A: That is another question designed to distract French philosophers, and we don’t think around here, therefore we aren’t. Philosophers, that is.


If you have grammar questions, please keep us in mind. You don’t need to contact us, just keep us in mind.