Let’s Eat Grandma

The late William Safire wrote a column for the New York Times called On Language. It was a delight to read, witty and always spot-on when it came to the proper use of grammar, syntax and the actual meaning and application of a word. One well-known example was the use, or misuse, of the comma. If I sent a note to grandma to join us at the dinner table I would write, “Let’s eat, grandma.” Without the comma, grandma becomes the proposed object of cannibalism. 

In this age of social media malapropisms, I want to honor Safire’s work by posting as many updated examples of loony linguistics as I can. This can be perilous: the last time I wrote a comment correcting the grammar of something in an online forum, I was told, “Get a life Peter.” I responded by adding a red-ink comma after the word life - but my attempt at sardonic humor only brought more scorn. I was just trying to be funny, so golly, get a life.

This section will honor the proper use of language with comments and observations of well-known writers and anyone else “out there” who wants to send me some examples. And, of course, I will be adding some of my own, at the risk of seeing another get-a-life admonition. But first we must begin with some fun quotes:

“That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.” - Winston Churchill, after being told he should not end a sentence with a preposition

“A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.” - Baltasar Gracián

“I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences.”  

- Gertrude Stein

“And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before - and thus was the Empire forged.” - Douglas Adams

“Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don't you find?” - Lemony Snicket

“My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” 

- A.A. Milne

“I might not use capital letters. But I would definitely use an apostrophe…and probably a period. I’m a huge fan of punctuation.” - Rainbow Rowell

“This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank.” - Christopher Moore

“Once in a while it would help if you looked up the meaning of a word so that you can apply it properly. Case in point: Reticent. It means not revealing your thoughts or feelings readily; you’re being silent. It is often used incorrectly by news media people as a substitute for the word reluctant, which means unwilling and hesitant; disinclined. It’s a subtle but important difference of application: A shy friend is reticent when asked about a personal problem, and I am reluctant to press him on the matter. I hear TV journalists swap reticent for reluctant all the time.” - Peter DeArmond

“What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?”

- Lynne Truss

“I have no idea what that is, but yawn, anyway, just on principle. Eat up. Pancakes is brain food.

Apparently not grammar food. Wow. You college girls are mean.” - Rachel Caine

“If you can spell ‘Nietzsche’ without Google, you deserve a cookie.” - Lauren Leto

“Grammar is a piano I play by ear.” - Joan Didion

“The harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.” 

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” 

- James D. Nicoll

“I might not use capital letters. But I would definitely use an apostrophe…and probably a period. I’m a huge fan of punctuation.” - Rainbow Rowell

“President Donald Trump told CNN that Hamas faces “complete obliteration” if the group refuses to cede power and control of Gaza. By definition the word obliteration means total destruction. You can say “total destruction” or simply “obliteration,” but “complete obliteration” is redundant and only reveals you don’t know the meaning of the word. Ah, but who cares about knowing the true meaning of a word when your words mean what you want them to mean?” - Peter DeArmond

“The past is always tense, the future perfect.” -  Zadie Smith

“The past, the present and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.” - Author unknown

“It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively." If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it is happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters.” -  Lemony Snicket

“Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later aditions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.” - Douglas Adams

“A man's grammar, like Caesar's wife, should not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.”

- Edgar Allan Poe

“Forming grammatically correct sentences is for the normal individual the prerequisite for any submission to social laws. No one is supposed to be ignorant of grammaticality; those who are belong in special institutions. The unity of language is fundamentally political.” - Gilles Deleuze

“I love you. You are the object of my affection and the object of my sentence.” - Mignon Fogarty