Inutility
Pigasus
MORE MOLTEN MUMBLINGS FROM THE GRAMMATICUS
ABODE
Professor Saxo Grammaticus, inspirited by a triumphant European lecture tour that took his flowing coattails before packed houses from Lisbon to Minsk, Reykjavik to Athens, & APIB-- his intimate entourage boasting notables the likes of Signora Z, benefactress of Milanese opera & its grand house Teatro alla Scala-- returns to jpt with tux sleeves rolled up and shin-kicking Prada oxfords afoot. We are delighted that reports of his enlistment in the People's Secret Cavalry of Belarus were hasty. Let grammar flourish and syntax thrive!
1. Here’s the deal: the word “unique” means only ONE simple thing. It means ONLY and forever “one of a kind.” Therefore: a) It cannot, must not, ever ever ever be modified in any way by any word—like “more” or “very” or “so” or “more” or “less.” You don’t say “X is more one-of-a-kind than Y or X is very one-of-a-kind, as opposed to Y, which is only a little bit one-of-a-kind.” Or maybe YOU do, hmmm? B) “Unique” is not a synonym for “cool” or “amazing” or “fabulous” or “fantastic” of those other meaningless noises—it JUST means one-of-a-kind! “Unique” is what is called an “absolute word,” meaning you can’t tinker with it. Get used to it!
2. No, double negatives don’t somehow make a positive or any other sort of nutty mathematico-linguistic surrealism! They’re just confusing and make you sound like a dumbbell. Try to keep your tongue away from your eye-teeth, so you can see what you are saying.
3. Don’t get tied in knots, but do try to keep “agreement in number” alive and well in the world. So, “none” usually takes a singular verb (“is” rather than “are,” for example), and you don’t want to get lost about what your nouns and verbs are in sentences longer than a few words—think!
4. Let’s not get weerd about spelling, in light of neon signs, advertisers, illiterate typesetters, text messages from boobies and other sore temptations to write rubbish like “lite,” “alrite,” “luv,” etc. There are already multitudes who cannot spell for real, without you mocking them, buddy! Support your local orthographer!
5. Forget what manual-writers, politicos and government hacks say: “usage” is a word that ONLY refers to matters of language. As in “good usage” rejects the word “usage” as meaning “use.” It is NOT EVER a synonym for “use.” ONLY use “use,” you dunderhead!
6. SPECIAL EMERGENCY FOOTNOTE FROM THE INSTITUTE OF REDUNDANCY, TAUTOLOGY & REPETITIVENESS: For some unknowable reason, at least 50% of all writers, reporters and other oicks who refer to the old Wobbly anarcho-syndicalist union, the IWW, parse it as “International Workers of the World,” when it was (obviously, you nitwit!) “Industrial Workers of the World.” Since there are NO editors, proofreaders and other minions of literacy and orthography left in our world, ONLY YOU can prevent all this gibberish from becoming standard and irreparable. The latest offender in this regard (sadly) is the skilled and highly articulate art critic and historian Robert Hughes, on pages 42 and 58 of his recent and otherwise enjoyable slice of autobiography, Things I Didn’t Know (2006), evidently aptly titled. The Wobblies, had they continued to thrive, had solutions for such offenses—a favorite slogan was “Dynamite—that’s the stuff!”
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We're reachin what yer teachin, p'fesser! Woo-hoooo! Y'know, ladies 'n' gentlemen, Grambo's back after jettin overseas with that Grand Ol Opry Italian lady, supposedly on business, and who am I to say otherwise, cause it ain't my affair, but they took the long way home, if you get my drift. Grambo's got more'n one hopeful heart carrying his flame stateside, that he just can't be being truthful with when they meet. Most people feel like his grasp of grammar more than makes up for a little loosey-goosey on the love front. Alls I know is, the man dots a mean t and crosses a mighty i, and that makes him King Kookaburra round here. And now a word from our sponsor, ladies 'n' gentlemen.
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