No Grammar For You!

I always find it funny when people who claim to be snobs are completely ignorant of the thing they're trying to be snobbish about. A few fortnights ago, I posted a rant in my deviantArt about this very subject. To sum it up, for those of you who don't want to read it and/or couldn't care less about my opinions about the anime community, I was lamenting the fact that the majority of the Internet's many gaggles of Howl's Moving Castle (the movie) fans don't even seem to know that Howl's Moving Castle (the book) even exists. I got a little vituperate about it, I will admit. I then conjectured that this ignorance was due to anime snobbery--"true" fans never watched dubbed anime, thus they had never seen the note in the title logo of the English version of this movie, which says, quite prominently, "Based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones."

Now I turn my ignorance-seeking eyes on a different Internet target: The vast battalions of Grammar Nazis, stationed in platoons across the many message boards of the World Wide Web, eager to ambush those unwary souls who dare to forget the captalize proper nouns. You know them, I guarantee you do. You have seen them ravage the digital flesh of many an unwary newbie before; their savage fangs, dripping with crimson correctional ink, severing the bulging jugular modem sticking out of their necks, causing bytes to spurt into the...

Alright, this metaphor is quickly descending into the disgusting. It's unnecessary too. You know EXACTLY whom I'm talking about, and I don't think I need to elaborate on this. Now let me explain why I, an English major who aneurysms over word choice and sentence organization, hate them.

These people have absolutely no idea what "grammar" actually is.

(Those of you with sensitive stomachs or allergies to ch4tsp34k should look away from the next paragraph.)

Believe it or not, the sentence "cn u come 2 c me l8r 2day" is completely grammatically correct. The sentence "Can you comes to sees me latest today?," easy as it is on the punctuation-parched eyes, is not. However, most Grammar Nazis will at least begrudgingly accept the later, possibly even as a jovial jape. Yet say the first example out loud. Yes, really. Ignoring the vowel slashed out of the first word, it is phonetically identical to the properly-typed "Can you come to see me later today?" Those of you who know a little bit about linguistics already know what's happening here, but for the rest of you, let me tote out my handy dandy Bag O' Definitions.

Grammar is the set of rules or properties which govern the usage of the language. I imagine that you are now a bit confused. "But how is that different from...?" Ah ah ah. Sit down. I'm getting there. Grammar concerns things such as... verb-subject agreement, tense, word order, verb valency... the like. Most of the rules of grammar you know without having to think of them. You have to actively think to break most of them. If you are an English speaker, you do not say things such as "I have a cat brown" or "I'm thinking of" unless you intend to do so for some specific reason (such as right now, when I consciously broke the rules of English to bring you those examples). You say, "I have a brown cat" or "I'm thinking of going for lunch."

Now say the following, grammatically correct sentence out loud: "I can't imagine it, Suzie."

You did NOT say, "Capital-I can-apostrophe-T imagine it comma capital-S Suzie period."

This was meant to illustrate to you the difference between grammar, the rules governing the structure of a language, and conventions, the prescriptions made for the use of written language. Conventions concerns the the standards we make for writing. They concern things such as capitalization, punctuation, et cetra. Conventions are things that we, as writers, have invented for the ease of reading. They help us divide up ideas into sentences. They help us mimic the patterns of speech in writing. They help us do many things. But they have nothing to do with grammar.

Conventions Nazis, as they should properly called, have an artificial job. Punctuation and conventions have no real bearing or presence on language. They only apply in the sphere of writing, which is in itself little more than a pale analogue of actual, fluid, dynamic human speech. Many of the thousands of languages spoken in the world today don't even have written forms. Oh, yes, I suppose, you will get the occasional hound who has a problem with sentences ending in prepositions. But this is as far as they'll generally go. (That is a nasty, artificial rule, by the way. It was invented by pompous snobs who were embarrassed to be seen speaking English--the language of common folk!--and tried to "dignify" it by making it more like Latin, instigating passels of odd "rules." But English is not a Romance language and it never was, despite the many words of Latinate origin we've picked up over the centuries. Face it--our closest linguistic cousins are lederhosen, kilts, and, far back enough, saris.)

The truth of the matter is, very rarely will anyone flub up true grammar. If they're not making a Felines that Laugh Out Loud caliber I-can-has joke, they're probably using a dialect with different rules than the "prestige" version of whatever they're speaking. Or they're not a native-speaker. There are many possibilities. If you're going to be a Grammar Nazi, there's really not much to persecute. But if you like to nitpick, there's plenty of work to be found in the camps of the Convention Nazies. But "Convention Nazi" isn't a catchy title, so their spies have covertly snuck into the enemy Grammar Nazi camps and stolen their identity. Now thousands of these disguised Convention Nazis walk among us, sullying the name of Grammar wherever they dare raise their heads.

There are a few convention-related gripes that I will side with the Convention Nazis on, but they are few and far between:

1) The use of the apostrophe-s suffix as a pluralizer is abhorrent and needs to stop.

This is not a simple matter of punctuation, however. Apostrophe-s is one of the Seven Sacred Inflecitve Affixes that serves a distinct grammatical purpose. Using it in place of a regular s IS a grammatical error, because pluralization and possessives are matters of grammar. Also, it causes me to mentally aspirate at the end of words. "Chicken Pot Pie-eh-s" just sounds silly.

2) Two, to, and too; their, there, and they're, all that junk.

Again, using the wrong word causes a substantial difference in meaning, so this one occasionally irks me. It's usually not worth being a pedant about, but if it's in a register where correctness is necessary and expected (such as academic writing), I will point it out. I usually don't bother getting my dander up over it, though.

3) OK, there really isn't a number 3. The two issues listed above are more or less it.

If they would call themselves what they are, I might not have a problem with them--well, OK, this is a lie. I have a problem with officious, bloviating jerks(for lack of a better word) with holier-than-thou attitudes wherever they spring up. But even more so when they claim to enforce a standard they scarcely understand. I don't think the informal register of the Internet demands perfection, and while I myself tend to use my prestige dialect here, this is simply the way I speak. And I use "like" as a quotative, too.

Of course, neither Grammar Nazis nor those they pursue will bring about the downfall of civilization. So long as we humans can communicate--which we are notedly adept at--society will chug steadily on.

But I'd be wary of anyone you see wearing a schwa armband.

T'su Kipasium Biblium Zihio

I get bored. (Incredible but true.)

I am also quite adept with language. (Incredible, yet also true--really, I'm far too modest.)

Utilizing both my boredom and my faculties in the language department (ho ho--wordplay), I have created my own language. (So what? Some guy callin' himself Dr. Espera-something did the same thing like a century or two ago.)

One which has significantly different grammatical rules than my mother tongue, English. (Um, yay?)

The benefits of having your own language, however, are quite limited when no one but you knows how to use it, and even I admit that I lack fluency in conversational Valencian. The Valencia in this case having nothing to do with anything Spanish (although the verb conjugation system owes a few dues to the Hispanic way of going about verb/subject agreement), but rather refers to the Valencia, the goddess to whom the mythical peoples who spoke this language prayed. One can, however, translate random things into one's personal language just for fun. Which is incidentally what I have been doing for the past half an hour.

I am merrily working away at translating Fine, the sarcasto-go-lucky, synth-happy tune from Lemon Demon, into Valencian. Naturally, the translation is not exact. Few translations are. Colloquialisms and idioms have to be localized, adjectives must be modified to fit the Valencian way of things, oh me oh my... But it is enjoyable, and a chance for me to stretch my linguistic muscles.

It's not done yet, but here are the first two verses for you.

English:

Today has a way
Of scarring your eyes
With negative light
But it’s a disguise.
I put on my shades
And see through the lies.

The convenient truth is:

Light is on the way;
We’ll be having a fun time.
It’s such a lovely day
We should pocket the sunshine
And never give it back
Even if there’s a heat wave
Or terrorist attack
It’ll just be a close shave.


Valencian:

Aleut mediuo
Cul raduo foruo di t’su
Pepii mul
A paal cul piimul.
Suum velan liuln
I opiu faru ul ninvarinh.

Ul varin tesiol cul:

Pii cul adderon;
Halahar.
Cul ale olplisuo
Sostiaut deus nurius piira li valesolot
I ninrio genus pepaal valesolot
Jinin paalut oligiuo
Re olrad tu “terrorist”
Sostia widi ato a pesirit.



You don't have to know how to pronounce words in Valencian to know that it doesn't quite have the same flow.

For All It's Worth

My school cafeteria is insane.

You would think that, once you leave the ranks of pub ed behind you for an illustrious career in higher education, that infamously bad school food would be obliterated. And it is. Kind of. It's nothing you'd find in even a low-key restaurant, but the creamed corn isn't going to crawl across your plate and start dissolving your mashed potatoes with its free-flowing digestive juices.

Sadly, the increase in quality is paid for by a decrease in sanity. A significant portion of my student union underwent reconstruction over the summer, and is now officially one clichéd line away from Sparta.

Like most student unions, ours is composed of a hodgepodge of cafeteria-style eateries and a number of brand name take-out places, such as Pizza Hut and Chik-fil-A. (It also houses one of our campus' three Starbucks.) The cafeteria is the main part that underwent renovation, though the Starbucks moved out of the sandwich shop and assimilated the Mexican place no one ate at--so now we have a Starbucks with confetti-esque wallpaper and the lingering smell of burnt refried beans, though that's neither here nor there. Similarly, the "main" cafeteria and the "takeout" cafeteria fused, becoming a singular bloated amoeba of horror. For some bizarre reason, our delightful Board of Bewildering Students decided that something was inherently wrong with our cafeteria. So they gave it a complete overhaul. Now, it is no longer a true cafeteria, but something our school pamphlets refer to as a "diner-style" eatery. This means that, instead of grabbing a plate and pilling random quantities of limp fettuccini, marinara sauce, and pudding on a plate, you pick out pre-prepared meals from beneath a heat lamp. There are several "stations" set up for this purpose.

I'm sure this sounds nice in theory, but it makes dining incredibly inconvenient. You can no longer pick and choose your food, compiling your dinner as you go--it's their way or the stairway. (Specifically, the one that opens out in front of the aforementioned Pizza Hut, which thankfully hasn't changed much, so you can still be in an out in as long as it takes for the pokey employees to finish making the breadsticks.) Quite puzzlingly, they've also abolished the salad bar, which seems quite a curious thing to do for an institution that puts standees on every table proclaiming the merits of a balanced diet yet only grudgingly provides fresh fruit. And you can forget about veggies--unless you like yours boiled to a gummy, rubbery consistency. You may have to resort, as I do, to munching baby carrots out of a bag like potato chips. The only food they serve with any consistency are pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs. Everything else is either an American-Chinese-Food recipe of the day, something with mushrooms in it (which I'm no great fan of) or sandwiches, which, although custom made, you must wait in an impossibly long line for. I've defaulted to the grilled cheese many a time. On the rare opportunity that they have one of their "lunch specials" available--which is usually just another type of toasted bread product--I pounce. The day they served plain cheese ravioli with canned spaghetti sauce, I practically wept. Largely because they only gave me three pillows of ravioli.

The only institution in that destitute cafeteria that remains comfortably familiar is the cereal bar, which is consistently well-stocked with various varieties of processed, fruit-and-sugar-flavored grain. If all else fails, there are always Frosted Flakes and milk. And yet... The most puzzling addition yet has taken up its fungal residence there.

Naturally, the cereal dispensers are right next to the milk machines. These are ridiculously confusing and awkward contraptions, but they seem to have been there for years, so I assume most students have come to put up with them. Near the beginning of the year, a sign appeared on one of the rectangular chrome devices.

"For your convenience, soy milk is available inside the dispenser."

As an English major, I am both confused and intrigued.

Both dispensers bear this signet, yet neither one actually contains soy milk. Soy milk is generally described as having a taste that resides somewhere between "a handful of dirt" and "two handfuls of dirt," and the milk inside these machines is rather lacking in that gamy flavor. So where is this mythical soy milk? I would like to claim that the issue with the sign lies in ambiguous structure, as that's generally the problem when sentences are unclear, but I am an English major, and I know better. The real issue lies within its frame of reference.

The beauty of language is that it is abstract. We can refer to things outside of ourselves with ease. We can replace entire phrases and clauses with pronouns and still retain all of our meaning, provided there is context for it. In writing, this context usually comes from the previous sentences. In everyday speech, we can point and gesture to our its and hes and shes, and we can use ambiguous determiners in the presence of multiple objects because we can indicate which we mean. A sign, gifted with neither fingers nor hands, has no such faculty. Thus the simple, everyday word the turns this sign into an enigma.
I admit it would be more humorous in its grammatical uncertainty if the sign said "Inside a dispenser" without bothering to mention which one, but the "the" is no less mystifying. There are a total of three milk dispensers that I know of in the cafeteria, making the "the" ambiguous. If the signs are meant to refer to any milk machine outside of themselves, then any determiner at all really isn't a good fit for the sentence. If the sign were meant to refer to the machine it's on, then a good "This dispenser" would suffice. But if the sign is meant to refer to something else--serving as a deterrent for eager vegans, I suppose--then it really ought to be giving directions in order to avoid ambiguity.

In order to be fair to the sign, I checked the labels over the machine's spigots to see if any of them were marked "soy." One machine bears skim milk and 2%, the other two contain both of those and chocolate. No clear indication, then, that any of these machines was a soy-bearing load. I sampled from each to try to determine their origins by taste. All seemed to be firmly bovine in origin. Somehow, I think I would be less incensed if the sign were a complete lie than if it were merely bad at giving directions.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Advanced Soy Milk Technologies have been put in place here, and the beany brew has been rendered invisible next to the real thing. I have never suffered from lactose intolerance, so my stomach does not serve as an accurate barometer in these issues. I may have been pouring legume juice over my cereal for weeks now and been completely unaware of it. If so, I commend the soy milk manufacturers for making it taste more like milk and less like soy; I was able to enjoy my pastrami on rye last week with a tall pale glass of lactic acid, and if I was in fact consuming raw liquid tofu, my taste buds are none the wiser.
Of course, spooning soggy Froot Loops into my mouth, I am inclined to wonder where in fact the real Fountain of Soy Milk lies. Is it hidden behind a counter some where? Must you request it specially, as they do for the omelets they serve at breakfast? Is it part of the secret menu at In-N-Out? If it doesn't exist, why the signs? To give disenchanted lact-ints a second lease on dairy? To convince the vegans that they have not completely forgotten them? Or are they merely there, as a strongly suspect, to confuse the living daylights out of English majors such as myself?

But if that is their purpose, they are awfully subtle. Today's Dinner Special sign commits a far more egregious error, certain to cause ringing in the ears of this university's collective English department.

"Chicken Pot Pie's"

Oh, how I weep.