Pedant

"Pedant: a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning", Google Dictionary says. And here's what's at the head of the Wikipedia article on the same topic: "This article is about a person who is excessively concerned with formalism and precision. For the piece of jewellery, see pendant."

Hehe - now that cracks me up. I suppose only a true pedant would appreciate it - somebody who's picky about detail. No, I'm not a pendant; I'm not wont to dangle off pretty necklaces. And as for being a pedant - who, me? Naaah.  I never show off academic learning, do I? The fact that I tend to feel smug about being able to use grammar properly, down to the correct use of the apostrophe in the possessive case, has nothing to do with any of this. (This all sounds better when you say it with your mouth pursed and your nose elevated just ever-so-slightly.)

What got me thinking of this was that I just wrote this sentence, referring to the country of Bordavia (in Christopher Bunn's latest novella, Rosamonde): "…it's famed for its roses." Hah, get it? Two i-t+s words, one with apostrophe, one without. It's not so hard, is it? Its rules are quite simple: when it's a contraction, you use the apostrophe; when it's a possessive, you don't. Huh, you say? The apostrophe is there to replace a letter (or two) you've left out, in the case of "it's", the space and i of "it is". When it's a possessive, the "s" is part of the word itself, just like in "his" or "hers". Think of it this way: if the country of Bordavia was a "he" instead of an "it", you'd say: "…he's famed for his roses", not "hes famed for hi's roses". See? Same thing for the itses. "He's/it's" and "his/its". Simple, no? My inner pedant is purring right now.

Now, as for pendants, I'm quite fond of those, too. I have some lovely pieces in my jewellery drawer - a silver locket, a jade maple leaf (I think that was a gift from Canadian relatives when I was a kid in Germany), a silver-and-tiger-eye teardrop, a small brass goblet (made by one of my sons in art metal shop), my mother's silver cross with a small blue stone in it (an aquamarine, perhaps? I wore it at my wedding.). In fact, my favourite pendants all have meaning - they've got provenance, i.e. I remember where they came from.

There, and that's the penultimate piece of pedantry for today, explaining to you what "provenance" means, as if you didn't already know or couldn't figure it out for yourself. Pedants of the World, Unite! You have Nothing to Lose But Misplaced Apostrophes! And the really funny thing is that I just mistyped "pedantry" as "pendantry".

Life, the Universe, Pedants and Pendants. Maybe we should stick with the latter, they're prettier.

Whom

Random picture of cat hanging out on towel shelf

I was reading this most excellent little book the other day: Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon. Great book, really. And then suddenly I run across this passage: "First, you have to figure out who to copy. Second, you have to figure out what to copy. Who to copy is easy. You copy your heroes - the people you love, the people you're inspired by, the people you want to be. ... What to copy is a little bit trickier. Don't just steal the style, steal the thinking behind the style. You don't want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes" (p.35/36). It's another articulation of Kleon's main point: There is nothing new under the sun. Everything we do has been informed by the work that's gone before us, so we might as well acknowledge it and capitalise on it. Oh, and if you're wondering what the difference is between good  theft and bad theft (of ideas, that is): good theft credits, bad theft plagiarises (i.e. claims the idea for one's own). So I've just committed good theft here, because I'm crediting Kleon's great book. Go out and buy a copy, it's worth it.

However, that's really not what I was going to waffle on about. What got me to writing this is the little matter of a missing "m" in the first sentence. Did you spot it? "...you have to figure out who to copy." And then again: "Who to copy is easy..." Urgh. The grammar nerd in me is drumming its heels on the floor right now. Whom, people, whom! But then, I had to tell my grammar nerd, just shut up. Because the fact of the matter is that normal people, people like you and me, don't actually say "whom" in daily life. Well, okay, maybe you do - I don't. "Figure out who to copy" is exactly what I would say if we were talking about rip-off artistry in real language, the spoken tongue-and-lips variety, right now. And Kleon's book is written just as if he was talking real-life talk; he writes colloquial. So, I vote, he can get away with it.

Because, you see, language changes. Yes, "whom" is the correct form. And I'm going to keep using it where it's appropriate in my writing, because I'm kind of anal that way. But to turn up one's nose at those who cannot or will not use the accusative of the interrogative pronoun where it is called for is a sign of mental immaturity. Or, in normal language, don't be a snooty so-and-so about using "whom", it's childish. As I said, language changes - we no longer say "whence" for "from where" either, and I bet it first started with spoken language.

However, if you do have, somewhere in the depths of your being, a long-held desire to plumb the mysteries of said interrogative pronoun - in other words, if you want to know when to say "who" and when to use "whom" - let me give you a little hint. The form "whom" is called the accusative because it's the word we use when we accuse someone. Whom do we accuse of being a snooty so-and-so? Him, that's whom. Who does the accusing? He, that's who. See? It's pretty easy. When the answer is "him", you use "whom", when it's "he", use "who". That's why, strictly speaking, in Kleon's sentence it should be "whom", because when you copy Van Gogh (or Austin Kleon), you copy him, not he.

And then there's this writer I met who told the story of how he was standing in line at the deli counter in the grocery store. The sales lady turned to him and the people next to him, and asked: "What can I get for you?" The writer, being of the well-spoken variety and not entirely clear on who was next in line, asked: "To whom are you speaking?" Without missing a beat, she replied: "To youm!"

Life, the Universe, and Interrogative Pronouns in the Accusative. Whom are you going to read next? I recommend Austin Kleon.

Grammar Crime

I just re-read my Christmas letter from last year, for reasons I need not go into at this moment. And part-way through, I found, to my shock and chagrin, that I had committed a heinous, horrible, heart-stopping grammar crime. To wit, I wrote "My son is not yet taller than my daughter and I." Oh, the shame! I cringe, I grovel, I blush rosy-red all over my badly grammarized face. (What's my face got to do with grammar? I don't know; it just sounded good at the moment to say that.)

In case you're not quite sure what's so terrible about this, let me enlighten you. It should have said "...my daughter and me." He's taller than ME, not taller than I (well, he is now; he wasn't when that letter was written). So obvious, so very, very obvious, when you drop the first word out of the list! It works with the reverse case, too- it's not "Him and me are going for a walk," because you also wouldn't say "Me am going for a walk," or "Him is going..." Oh, okay, fine- maybe I wouldn't say that, but you would? Far be it from me (from I?) to tell you how to grammarize yourself.

Actually, truth be told, I'm not all that big on grammar, really. I do know how to use it, for the most part, and it bugs me when it's used sloppily by people who should know better. But I don't really know the theory behind it, don't know the rules. I just know what sounds right, for the most part, but if you want to argue really strenuously about some fine grammatical detail, and have rulification to prove your point, I just might have to back down on it, and I'm quite okay with that. Or if you truly couldn't care less if your speech is grammatical, that's fine by me, too; I'd rather hear a kind word couched in bad grammar than a perfectly worded insult. Grammar is, after all, only a tool.

When I was in grade 5, back in Germany, they tried to teach us grammar in school. My language arts teacher knew full well that grammar is at best a yawn-inducing subject, so he tried to make it more interesting by introducing a little alien who had, purportedly, landed in his backyard, and was trying to communicate with him. Said alien didn't speak the language very well; in fact, it was consistently making grammar mistakes, and our teacher was in need of the aid of his students for correcting the alien's errors. Hmph. The first time he came out with that story, it was interesting (somewhere along the lines of "What the heck...?" It wasn't quite what one was used to from one's German teachers.). The second time, it was mildly amusing. And after that, if the alien was brought up, we knew that we were in for yet another grammar lesson... Sigh.

But, here's something that just occurred to me: my grade 5 days were in the distant past of the year 1978. Hmm. Small alien, bad grammar. Wonder it makes me, that does. I don't recall the physical description of my teacher's alien - but do you think that just, perhaps, after it hung around in his backyard for a while, and failed to learn proper German grammar from him due to the lack of interest on the part of his students in providing grammatical aid, it powered up its spaceship, and flew West across the Atlantic? And then it flew a little further yet, across the Southern States, until, just short of yet another ocean, it touched down in the backyard of a bearded fellow who was busily scribbling away on the script for a new movie. And the alien stepped out of its spaceship - no, wait, it hovered out. And it opened its greenish mouth, and uttered these immortal words: "Do. Or do not. There is no try." (By this point, the alien had given up the attempt to learn proper human grammar, in any language; it just talked any-which way.) And the young man in whose yard the alien had landed took out his movie camera, shot footage of the alien, and released it two years later to great critical acclaim in movie theaters across the world. (Whether the alien got any royalties out of it is hitherto unknown.)

And here I thought my teacher had just made up that alien to try to teach us grammar.

Life, the Universe, and Grammar Lessons. Thought of this I never would have, had it not been for the heinous grammar crime which slipped by me in my Christmas letter.