What Are You Really Saying?

I think one of the things I love about grammar is that it transposes subtle layers of meaning over the extant meaning of the words themselves. This operates on several levels (and this isn't PC; that's not what I'm here for).

Poor grammar may convey apathy, not knowing any better, a lack in education, or laziness. Or, certain technically incorrect but nevertheless systematically structured grammatical constructions could indicate background, culture, age-group, generation, etc. Consider Ebonics. Psychologist Robert Williams explains in Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks:

A two-year-old term created by a group of black scholars, Ebonics may be defined as "the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendant of African origin. It includes the various idioms, patois, argots, idiolects, and social dialects of black people" especially those who have adapted to colonial circumstances. Ebonics derives its form from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, the study of sound) and refers to the study of the language of black people in all its cultural uniqueness.

Obnoxiously correct grammar, on the other hand, could insinuate a superiority complex (or its corollary, insecurity), language snobbiness (guilty!), or even the much more benign genuine effort to speak our language the way it should be spoken (as with students learning, valiantly, the complexities, inconsistencies, and vagaries that make up the rules of English).

In addition to these high level meta-meanings, grammatical constructions have the power to change the actual meaning of a sentence or phrase – for better or worse. I love the tightness of a deliberately structured sentence in which not a single word is frivolous. Each word executes its full potential to communicate: Denotation, connotation, and syntax are used in a manner that, rather than feeling constructed, is beautiful because of its effortlessness.

And I hate lazy sentences that are ambiguous by accident. When you said, "I saw your house going down the road" is this really what you meant?



In short – just like a wife is attuned to the tonal nuances uttered by her husband, whether or not he's cognizant that he's communicating more in non-words than words – grammar embodies one way in which the "text" itself affects our assimilation of it: How we say something is as important as what we're saying.

Friday Folly

A few foolish finds from the blogosphere for your flinching fun:

• "I can't wait to step foot in an actual mall."


• "This collection was no acception..."


• "My honey and I at dinner."

What have you seen or heard this week?

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Am I Nauseous? Or Is It Just Your Grammar?

***This is the blog I was going to write:***

Let's get this straight, and I'll put it simply: Nauseous refers to causing nausea. Nauseated, on the other hand, is what most people mean when they say they are "nauseous."

So, contrary to popular speech, the following sentences are correct:

• "I shouldn't have eaten that questionable eclair. Now I feel nauseated."


• "That nauseous movie had way too many disgusting 'special' effects. We shouldn't have watched it."

Warning: DO NOT say to your sick friends when they say they are nauseous, "Um, nauseated." (Imagine this uttered with a slightly nasal, super annoying voice, from the back seat of a car on a lovely spring day in Berkeley -- sorry D!!) I didn't get punched in the face like I deserved, but you might.

Confession: I have faked it with this one. What I mean is, I've purposely said "I'm nauseous" instead of "I'm nauseated" so as not to sound, I don't know, weird or something. Tell me I'm not the only one who's done this.

***This is my amendment:***

Secure (and, honestly, superior) in the point I was about to make, I looked up nauseous on Dictionary.com and was dismayed to find this:

The two literal senses of nauseous, “causing nausea” ( a nauseous smell ) and “affected with nausea” ( to feel nauseous ), appear in English at almost the same time in the early 17th century, and both senses are in standard use at the present time. Nauseous is more common than nauseated in the sense “affected with nausea,” despite recent objections by those who imagine the sense to be new.

"Despite recent objections by those who imagine the sense to be new??" OUCH.

Well... next I turned to Strunk and White, my old pals. I can always count on them. Here's what they had to say in their chapter "Misused Words and Epxressions":

Nauseous. Nauseated. The first means "sickening to comtemplate"; the second means "sick at the stomach." Do not, therefore, say, "I feel nauseous," unless you are sure you have that effect on others.

Woohoo Strunk and White and vindication!!!

To speak correctly, or acceptably? The line can be fuzzy, but if we don't take a stand somewhere, where will it stop? Oh, it's nauseating. I mean, soon no one will correct even the "Me and Tony went to Europe"s because, well, that's how we talk -- and then where will we be?

But does it matter?

I like to think of myself as a grammar purist, one who rages against misuses of a word or punctuation or sentence structure becoming "acceptable." To me, that's just conceding to grammar laziness and confusing actual mistakes with "usage."

Grammarphiles, am I alone??

The One I Hate the Most

It's everywhere, and it makes me cringe (at the least) or shout (at the most) whenever I hear, or - even worse - see it: the I/me pitfall.

When I was young, the worst grammar mistake we could make was probably saying something along the lines of "Me and Tonya went to school" or the slightly less scandalous "Tonya and me went to school." I mean, everyone knows not to say that!

Sadly, drilling this into school children's heads without ever making sure they knew the underlying grammatical logic has turned us into a nation of people saying things like, "She went to business school with Max and I" (AHHHHHHHhhhhhhh!!! Cringe, cringe) in an effort to use "correct" grammar. The worst is when I hear news anchors or characters (who should know better) on TV shows perpetuating this travesty of proper speech.

Obviously, there's confusion on this point. And the kicker is that people who sincerely want to use correct grammar often fail, accidentally, when it comes to this particular issue.

Going back to cases (the various forms of a particular word that indicate its grammatical function) and understanding when to use which case of a word is a guard against this - and many - questions of grammar.

Both I and me are first person singular pronouns. The difference is that I is a subject pronoun and me is an object pronoun. In simple terms, we use I when I am the one doing the action of the sentence and me when the action is being done to or with me.

So:
"I am going to the movie with Crystal and my friends."
"My friends and I are going to the movie with Crystal."
"Crystal is going to the movie with my friends and ME."

To drive the point home:
"Mom told Jerry and me the secret password."
"Daniel took her and me to the fabric store."

You can "test" your usage by taking the other people out of the sentence. For instance, you'd never say "Crystal is going to the movie with I" or "Daniel took I to the fabric store."

I could go on, but I think it's clear now. Yes? Please send any questions regarding this or other grammar situations my way. I'd be thrilled to rant about their answers.