Language and grammar

I am not a prescriptivist, but that doesn't mean I love and equally appreciate all language. Some things grate on me. That doesn't mean I think they should be done away with, but it means they aren't easily ignored. I am more tolerant of grammatical differences when they don't appear to be merely stylistic differences. In other words, so-called "bad" grammar is not so annoying to me unless it is stylistically bad. By style, I refer to those types of matters addressed by Strunk & White in Elements of Style (many of which, inevitably, related to grammar).

All that aside, however, I do have some pet peeves about habits that reveal a painful disregard for grammatical and stylistic consistency. The less there's logic to one's grammar, the more it grates on me. John Lennon saying "Me used to be angry young man" doesn't really give me much heart-burn, in part because I don't hear that much and so it seems quaint. But when I hear trends in bad grammar used in abundance and those trends are totally internally inconsistent, it really does jump out at me and, I admit, irritate me. I'm not saying this to imply that because it irritates me it must be bad. I'm simply openly acknowledging that I am flawed and that I immaturely react to someone's grammar by being irritated (there are other things I feel, including complete indifference, but I'm specifically addressing the irritating things here).

One of the most annoying is the inconsistent use of pronouns. "Bob and me went to the store" is totally inconsistent with "I went to the store." Either "Bob and I went" or "me went." Why does Bob going change the pronoun I use for myself? Some people sense that something is wrong, so they say instead "Bob and myself went to the store," which is really no better. The same people who say "Bob and me went" then say "The car hit Bob and I." Again, "The car hit me" and "The car hit Bob and I" are completely inconsistent. Why make "I" the direct object simply because Bob is thrown in there? And, again, some correct themselves by saying "The car hit Bob and myself." Oy.

What really takes it to whole new level of ridiculous is when this is extended to possessive pronouns. I hear frequently this construction: "Your yard looks great, but Bob and I's is a mess." Some of you will think I'm creating this, but I adjure that I hear it frequently. It could be regional, but I'm not so sure. I think we just ignore it and have trained ourselves just to understand the meaning and not notice the crime that has just been commited. It's a sort of logical extension--if you subscribe to the "always say 'I'" theory (and many do), then it doesn't take a great leap to converting the first person possessive pronoun "my" (or "mine" for that matter) into "I's." But who would say, "Stop! Don't take that! It's I's!"?

So the inconsistency really gets me. I admit that if I found someone who only had "I" in his vocabulary and used it always to me "I" or "me" or "myself" or whatever, then that's acceptable to me on some level. At least it's consistent.

Now I'm not saying that all language is internally consistent and logical. It's not. But we have conventions for usage (perhaps this is style) and I just like a world that's a little more conventional than what the above reveals.

I'm also not saying that I have perfect grammar and great style. I don't. I admit that. I also don't think that it's bad to have one standard for formal speech and another for colloquial speech. I certainly use different speech in different contexts. And I allow myself to use a "relaxed" grammar in familiar settings.

OK, enough of my rant. I'll list a few of my pet peeves that I've run across in recent days. This is not an exhaustive list of my pet peeves, mind you (oh, no, I'm way to peevish for that), but these are some ones that grate me that have come up in recent situations:

1. Confounding "to lay" and "to lie." This is so common as to amount quite possibly to a shift in definitions or style. I mean, when it's ten times more likely to be said the "wrong" way than the "right" perhaps our definition of "wrong" and "right" need to be flipped. Anyhow, a person doesn't "lay down" on the couch. "To lay" is more appropriate to a transitive context. "I will lay down this book." "Please stop laying eggs in the kitchen." (How's that for a fabulously ambiguous statement?) But when a person is lying down, he should lie down and not lay down. "It is time for me to lie down." "I'm going to lie down in the grass and enjoy this beautiful weather." I think the past tense creates some of the confusion: "Yesterday, I lay down in bed." Oh, well. I'll never cave in on this one.

2. The whole pronoun thing with me, my, he, him that I mentioned above. I often hear the "him and I" as in "She kicked him and I out of the library." Yuck. As a side-note, I read in a linguistics book years ago that you can't formally teach grammar to your kids, that it's been shown that they learn based on what they hear, not what they're told to do. I got so frustrated one day that I told my kids how to do the whole pronoun thing, and it's pretty rare for them to get it wrong (that was several years ago). So much for that theory. I'd be willing to say that pronouns cause more problems in grammar than anything else for native English speakers.

3. Past and past perfect stuff. Why is it so acceptable in English to get this wrong always? "I seen" and "I have saw" and "I had ate" and "we had forgot" and on and on. Ewww.

4. A rampant one in these parts comes up in the "should" and "might" and such contexts. Instead of "If I hadn't ruined my appetite, I might have been able to finish my supper," you get "If I hadn't ruined my appetite, I might a could finished my supper." What is that? I don't even know what that is! I think the "a" might be a "have" that is partially pronounced, which makes it "I might have could finished." Wow. You hear "shoulda could," "woulda could," etc. I think it's probably charming deep down, but it's a bit off-putting and it never slides by unnoticed.

5. Another one around here--and it's small--is that "I wish" always seems to be in the past tense: "I wished." As in "I wished I could go home early today." I'm not sure about this one--maybe I'm hearing some kind of vestigial "t" sound, maybe I'm making it up, but I could swear this is what is being said.

I should stop. I am not really so much peevish as uncomfortable with the whole thing. These things just always call out to me and perhaps it's an OCD thing or something, but I can't escape these things and just ignore them. I am honest when I say that I never miss these--I can't let them just slide by.

Oh, well. I'm sure this post is full of all sorts of stylistic and grammatical blunders, so I'll take the jousts in good stride. But I hope my point isn't lost along the way. What is my point, you ask? That I'm a really obnoxious person to be around.

The TV complex

When I was six years old, my older sister and I were watching our little black and white t.v. Sesame Street had just ended and Mr. Rogers came on. I disliked Mr. Rogers. I had discovered that if you pushed the reset button on the back of the tv while it was on, it would turn off. I snuck behind the tv and pushed the button. Sweet sis turned it back on. I turned it back off. She turned it back on. (This is getting predictable, no?) As I went to hit reset again, sis anticipated it and turn it back on at the same time. A few sparks and smoke came out and that was it for the tv. My mom seemed elated and threw it in the basement.

Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.

When we moved to a new state some years later, we rented someone's furnished house for a year. They had a tv. So we watched some. When my parents decided to stay in that state, and required that we children stay in the state as well, we at some point bought a tv. Actually, I think we had an RGB color monitor that could double as a tv. We had serious restrictions (PBS only for a few years), but we got to watch. Other than a revolting moment when we were forced to watch a show about having babies, it was nice.

I should say the entertainment was nice. The guilt--not so much. I don't know what it is, but there's some complex in the family about tv-watching. I'm sure it has something to do with all the garbage and mindless drivel. And yet, there's decent stuff too. And everyone would watch tv, so it was kind of silly to me to hear all the little comments about how only stupid people watched tv and how it was the boob tube and a waste. But that's the way it was.

We have multiple tvs in our home today. Sometimes we watch tv, sometimes we don't. It can go months without seeing anything, then months with us watching a bit. I'm not sure why it's inconsistent like that, but it is. We watch more movies than tv, but I'm not sure that's any better (except we don't have to watch the commercials).

I still have a complex though. I still catch myself pretending that I don't watch as much tv as I do. It's hard to dodge the occasional comment too. One of our tvs is ridiculously big--it kind of fell into our laps. I like it, especially for those occasional Red Sox games (big sports is nice). Also for movies with good cinematography.

Anyhow, with that background and those confessions, let me list a few truisms, according to me, about the tv:

1. Most of what's on tv is not worth watching.
2. Watching too much worthwhile tv is not worthwhile.
3. Some tv is educational and stimulating.
4. Most tv is corrupting and stupid.
5. Watching tv for entertainment is ok, provided that: you don't lower your standards (no soap operas, no game shows, no sit coms, for example), you don't watch too much (entertainment can be the salt that makes life interesting, but too much is just plain gross), you put first things first (family! church! work! physical activity!), you don't get hooked on something, and you don't start using the tv for companionship.
6. Some of the times family members of mine have looked the silliest is when they make gratuitous comments about how they don't watch tv or don't like tv or blah blah.
7. While tv can be evil, it's not the only evil.
8. Acting like tv is the only evil is hypocritical.
9. You shouldn't watch much tv.
10. A tv is a tv.

Well, I hope that clarifies my position on the issue. I haven't watched tv in months (as far as I can remember). What that means is that I can start feeling self-righteous for a while. And when I get tired of that, I can start watching again. Then after a while, I'll forget to watch for a few months, which will enable me to feel self-righteous again. It's a beautiful cycle.

As I conclude, I must say that this is an open forum and I'd welcome comments back. No one need agree with me. It's interesting, but this complex that I've been living with for decades seems to be a bit trendy all of a sudden. Do you have a tv complex? If you do have a complex, why? What is it? If you don't, why not?

Can't wait to read what my four readers might think.

Politics, dogma, orthodoxy, partisanship and David Copperfield

Little David Copperfield had a bad run of it. Born into bleak circumstances, losing his mother, being kicked around, running from place to place, finding a hero in James Steerforth, lifting himself up by his bootstraps, being ever loyal and earnest and sincere, marrying the wrong way then finding meaning and fulfillment as a widower and finally marrying the right way. Tragic, but heart-warming. Vintage Dickens, who described it as his most auto-biographical novel.

C.D. and D.C. did little overt philosophizing in the book. It was a long, linear story about a young boy growing into a man. There were some poignant moments that seem to condemn 19th century English society, but I'm loathe to draw too many conclusions. I've heard Jane Austen described as a woman before her time who cleverly and subtley took stabs at English classes in 18th century England. When I read her, I can't help but conclude that people are trying to read satire into her to compensate for her apparent acceptance of society. The critics, I believe, are imposing their own cynicism on her. I find no objective evidence to support their conclusions (though I readily admit I'm no scholar in the field and have not even attempted to study this out). What I see is someone who was very much a product of her time and who was a master of character development.

My point is that I think David Copperfield is primarily a slice of life take from the author's own life, granted with fictionalized components. To read it as a social commentary is perhaps trying too hard. Having read the book, I don't see any clear reason to assume that Dickens was trying to condemn poverty, child labor or anything else. There's no doubt he considered such things tragic and wrong, but the text is more about life: pain, trial, friendship, love, loyalty, character, greed, ambition, growth, etc. It just so happens that the vehicle to paint that total picture is 19th century England--which was indeed bleak in many respects. I tip my hat to Dickens for tackling such a realistic (sometimes naturalistic) view of things. I think he was poking fun more like Gary Larson in The Far Side than Garry Trudeau in Doonesbury. He was never so self-conscious and determined as Trudeau, but had a sharp wit and couldn't help but poke fun at society in general. But was he political? I don't think so.

Well, I better stop with that before someone thinks I think I know what I'm talking about, because I know I don't.

Political and social commentary today is so often less artful. It's so often loud and in-your-face. Everyone has an opinion, whether they've bothered to develop it or not. Politics are more reactionary, imo, than thoughtful and considered. I have had endless discussions over the years with many people about politics, but few seem to want to discuss the matter, but prefer bold pronouncements. Where is the thinking taking place? Is anyone sitting down and mulling over political issues? If so, where are these people?

I have certainly run across people who appear to be reflecting about political issues, but really they appear to have theses. They appear to be trying to articulate for themselves what they've already adopted from others--the canned arguments they're learning to parrot from teachers, parents and friends. It's strange to me. Where has the dialog gone? Why the determined predisposition toward certain views? Where's the reasoning, analysis and discussion?

Most of my discussions with other people have fallen into the category of apology--listing the evidences and arguments supporting a predetermined point of view. But how did they get there? Why are they so unwilling to challenge their own biases? Why is there so much pressure to think this way or that? There's overwhelming self-righteousness everywhere. Policy decisions are always discussed as moral issues. Since when is universal health care a "moral" issue? Since when is mandatory minimum sentences a "moral" issue? Why can't we call them what they are--complex questions. Why can't we assume that those that think one way and those that think the other are honest, good people? Why do we say that immigration laws and campaign finance laws are matters of fundamental human morality? Why take dogmatic, rigid, polarized positions to issues? Why do both parties adopt views opposing the other? I rankle at partisanship and the need to have someone define my issues and my positions.

People talk about being progressive or liberal or conservative or libertarian or this or that. Those terms have lost meaning with me (if they ever had it). Why is spending tons of money on the military "conservative"? Why is the social security program "liberal"? Where is the common philosophy governing the positions? Frankly, neither major party seems to have a cohesive, uniform theory that governs its politics.

Politics isn't where it begins or ends. There's an ever-waging battle between so-called orthodoxy and so-called progressiveness. In my view, orthodox simply means it's old. Sometimes that means it's entrenched. Sometimes it means its reasoned. Who knows.

The questions of dogma, doctrine, orthodoxy and partisanship are fundamentally fallacious. The question shouldn't be whether it is conventional or unconventional, but whether it's right or wrong, or effective or ineffective. As long as it isn't wrong, there are a lot of possible right answers. Is taxing gasoline heavily right or wrong? I say it's neither--it's based on a policy assumption. It's not a fundamentally moral question. I don't deny that people's sense of morality underlies all policy and all laws, but that does not mean that policy is right or wrong in any absolute sense.

I always try to fight the gravitational pull of partisanship. I hope I can analyze policy on its own merits.

I think some of this view of partisanship is a fiction created by talking heads. I think most Americans vote across party lines. I hope so, anyhow. Not that the only right way to vote is for both parties. That idea reminds me of the false notions that "diversity is good" or "change is good." I disagree. Good diversity is good. Good change is good. Diversity that includes pedofiles, murderers and warmongers is not good diversity. Change that includes blowing up planet earth is not good change.

David Copperfield was ingenuous and searching. He was also tough and sometimes bold and outspoken. He made moral judgments and followed his conscience. He was tough-minded when decided, open-minded when searching. He was loyal to a fault and slow to judge and condemn. But when condemnation and judgment were due, he was unequivocal and sometimes fierce. There's no question that he despised Uriah Heep and had little sympathy for his pathetic upbringing and how that might have contributed to his evil (perhaps because whose upbringing could be more pathetic than David's?).

I think David Copperfield is the model of what I advocate here. He was neither partisan or dogmatic. But neither was he weak and undecided. He drew his own conclusions based on his own observations and did the best he could to follow his judgment.

I aspire to that model. Let's be clear: there's a difference between being dogmatic and simply being sure of oneself. Both may be unyielding and even stubborn, but one does it because of dogma, the other (I hope) because of reason and moral courage.

The world does not need fewer determined people--it just needs more people that are self-determined.

Ambiguity

I've addressed vagueness, but only once mentioned ambiguity here. Multiple meanings wrapped into one word or phrase provides as much protection from clear understanding as vagueness does. Even the description of my blog under the title is deeply ambiguous. And beautifully so.

One of my many goals is to become an open book. I might impishly delight in obscurity, but some day I want to be like some people I know who are not obscure. This goes part and parcel with my sense of humor, which revels too much in taking people off guard. I want to be good, honest, open, up front. In the end, I want to be guileless. But it will be a real sacrifice (granted of something of no great worth).

Pronouncing "Bierbeekstraat"

My childhood reading endeavors taught me how to mispronounce countless words. My reading vocabulary, in other words, was beyond my listening vocabulary. So "hedgerow" became "head-grrr-oh" in my head. Likewise, "hogshead" became "hog-shed."

So for all those people with little voices in their heads, "Bierbeekstraat" is roughly pronounced "beer-bake-straht." I am only trying to approximate the correct pronunciation, so that should help.

By the way, if you're still reading this post, it means roughly "ale stream street." Please do not attempt to imbue any grand significance in the name of the street--I don't drink and my "mental meanderings" are not drug-induced.

Music

Music, for me, serves a few purposes: entertainment, energy for work, relaxation. It can also provide me with familiar voice and instrumentation and can be comforting that way. My deepest need that music serves, however, is spiritual. And the best music to fill that need for me, hands down, is classical. Hearing Mary's mourning in Requiem (Mozart) is a yearning call. The simple, resonant baseline of Cannon in D (much better than Cannon in D-flat, or, worse yet, C-sharp--see? I amuse myself), captures me. The choral effusion in Ode to Joy is exhilirating.

It's interesting, classical music for me is primarily about the spiritual, about seeking peace, comfort, englightenment, and, most importantly, deep, pensive reflection. It's not that way for everyone.

So here's my question:

Why do you listen to music?

Note to the reader: this is the interactive moment where I hope to learn something from you. While I'm reasonably intuitive, I have a hard time intuiting everyone's thoughts about everything. So, unless you post a comment here, I don't know if I'm going to gain much from my question. Since I post the question to learn, that would defeat the purpose. I realize I have no readers, but even they, surely, have comments. Thank you.

Language

I am half explicit, half subtle. I mix clarity of speech with vague allusions. Well articulated ideas appeal to me as much as self-directed comments that only I get. I am as pleased with grand pronouncements as I am with amusing myself in my own way. I'm happy to make myself chuckle and to serve as my own audience.

Clearly there is some psychological flaw that feeds this.

But that's who I am. If you've ever read one of my poems (and I hope you haven't), I'm sure you came away either mystified or irritated. I don't pretend to be good at poetry, but I get devilish pleasure out of writing it. It's like my other creative pursuits: my forays into sculpting and painting, my development of endless spreadsheets calculating heaven-knows-what, my attempts at writing fiction, etc. In each case, I'm delighted to be crafting, even if it's mostly for myself. This is actually my third blog, but I'm certain that I am the only one ever to have read them all. I don't write for others' benefit or consumption, but to satisfy some inner need to get something inside of me outside of me. It's like vomiting, only for clearing the mind rather than the stomach.

This time, I will not hide who I am and allow anyone to read. I will not say who I am, but I won't hide it. There seems to be some modern need to be a literary exhibitionist--to allow strangers to see your thoughts in print. It's a strange phenomenon, but I don't think we should apologize for it. In a world bent on political correctness--by which I mean self-censorship designed primarily not to offend and secondarily to communicate--I think it is important to have a forum, whether public or private, whether written or oral or other, to have a say.

I don't think bloggers have grandiose ambitions, but mostly want to be heard. Is it exhibitionist by nature? Sure. But more profoundly, it is autobiographical. It is like prayer--it is about self-discovery. But rather than being directed at God, the source of all knowledge and power, it is directed at other flawed, limited people. It's a petition to mankind to hear. And by being heard, even if we're misunderstood and unappreciated, we are defining ourselves and discovering ourselves.

So, this is language in print. This is my attempt to communicate something to someone. It's imperfect. It is sometimes dark and confused, sometimes noon-day clear, but it's something. I am explicit and I'm vague and ambiguous.