Category Archives: english

The President Teaches Me Good English. The Best.

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Dan and I have enrolled in the Donald Trump Remedial English Program.

I can’t pinpoint the exact date this happened, but we reached the saturation point at about the same time. Perhaps it was when we were enjoying a glass of fine ten-year-old Rioja. We enjoyed the delicious aroma, observed how it coated the inside of the glass, and swirled it around in our mouths a bit before swallowing. “This is really good,” I said to Dan.

“The best,” he replied, a response that for the past several months has brought us laughter. It’s been fun imitating our President’s, er, distinctive verbal style.

We each saw the doubt in the other’s eyes.

“All the other wines are losers,” I essayed. But it was too late. This no longer had the cachet of fresh humor that it once had.

“Pathetic?” he tried.

No. Clearly we were done.

“This is really sad,” I said, ignoring the warning finger Dan was waving at me. “It’s the end of an era. We can’t go on this way. It’s just not working anymore. We can’t just say, ‘the best.’ It doesn’t mean anything.”

Dan agreed. “But what should we say?” he wondered. “The best wine?”

Suddenly, it was all clear to me. We have become grounded on the shoals of vagueness. “That’s better, but it’s not good enough. We have to be more specific. What do you mean, ‘the best wine’? Why is it the best? The best for what? The best wine you’ve ever tasted in your entire life? The one wine that Robert Parker will finally rate with one hundred points? The best wine on this restaurant’s wine list—and how would you know that? Or maybe just the best wine for this particular dinner?”

“Stop!”

But I couldn’t stop. “The problem is that ‘best’ is entirely the wrong We have to rediscover the wonderful world of picturesque description. We’d be better off with just ‘This wine is really good.’ But even so, we can do much better. We have to start learning all over again how to say what we really mean. And what we really mean here is, ‘This wine is delicious.’ Or, ‘It’s exactly the kind of wine I was hoping for.’ Or even, ‘I really like this wine; it’s just to my taste.’”

And so we vowed we would try, from that moment on, to avoid certain formerly funny phrases and instead to say specifically what we mean. It’s hard, but we are doing our best to keep each other honest. We may need to join a twelve-step program.

On our last night in Barcelona, we explored a restaurant that sounded promising on Yelp and was only a short walk from our hotel. After we’d been seated, looked over the menu and ordered, and our first course had arrived, Dan said, “This restaurant is the best.”

I gave him a squinty, head=tilted look.

“Restaurant. It’s the best restaurant.”

“Really?” I asked. “In the world? According to whom?” (Yes, folks, I do actually, from time to time, use the word ‘whom’ in ordinary speech.) “The best in what respect? Certainly not the tablecloths.” (There were none.) “No other restaurant has better service? Better ambiance? Is it the variety of items on the menu? How perfectly they are cooked? Have you tried enough items on the menu to be sure? Or are you talking about value for the money? Maybe it’s just that the restaurant is the right length of a walk from our hotel?”

Dan sighed. “I really like the menu and the food, and it’s exactly the quality and degree of informality I was hoping for, on our last night in Barcelona. I can’t imagine a better place for us to be having dinner tonight.”

I sighed and smiled. “I feel the same way.”

Gimme Grammar 2

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There are a number of differences between British English and American English when it comes to grammar and punctuation, but none is so annoying (to a person on the left side of the ocean) as the rules applying to punctuation adjacent to quotation marks at the end of a sentence.

In this case, the Brits are completely logical. And the Americans are, well, Americans.

I refused to accept this for years, but I’m older and more mellow now, and I try to do what I’m told.

Here are the rules.

If you’re British (and I think but I’m not sure, also Canadian) you do the right thing: Terminal punctuation adjacent to quotation marks goes where it logically makes sense. If it closes whatever’s in the quotation marks, then it goes inside the quotation marks. If it closes the sentence as a whole, then it goes outside the quotation marks. I feel a bit silly including examples since this is so bloody obvious, but, well, maybe not to the Americans. So here you go:

  • She let out a scream and cried, “Help!”
  • The grammarian sighed. “I can’t help you.”
  • “Why on Earth not?”
  • What is the definition of the word “abecedarian”?
  • [Watch this one carefully] “I don’t know the definition of the word ‘abecedarian’.”
  • Here is the definition of “abecedarian”.

Now, for you Americans, the first three of these work the same way. So does the fourth, because the rule is this: regardless of the logic of the sentence, if the terminal punctuation is a question mark or an exclamation point, it goes outside the quotation marks.

But the final two examples are different. If you’re an American, the rule is this: Regardless of the logic of the sentence, if the terminal punctuation is a period or a comma, it goes inside the quotation marks.

  • [Watch this one carefully] “I don’t know the definition of the word ‘abecedarian.'”
  • Here is the definition of “abecedarian.”

Oh, that last one really hurts.

Gimme Grammar

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Okay, I’ll admit it: I love grammar. I particularly love getting it right. When I was in high school about two and a half centuries ago I really enjoyed diagramming sentences. I could probably still do it, and I’d take some pleasure from it, too.

Like anyone with a passion about something, I do have my pet peeves on the subject–misuses that particularly annoy me. Don’t you?

One of the grammatical errors that I especially love to hate is the misuse of “whoever” and “whomever”. I once almost got fired over this. Really.

The incident occurred when I worked as a director of a software delivery and customization organization inside a fast-growing software product company. I was asked to review a brochure about our services that had been drafted by a young man who worked as a contract writer in the marketing department. The precise offending sentence has long been forgotten, but it was structurally similar to the following:

Our company’s services are indispensable to whomever wants up-to-date Web-site information.

Naturally, I corrected “whomever” to “whoever”, but the young writer didn’t make the change.

This went on for two revisions. I took the trouble to quote Garner’s Modern American Usage and other sources, all of which he ignored. After all, he was the expert on writing, not me. I was the software manager, and what do software managers know about English? Obviously–nothing. Finally, I lost my cool. I wrote him a scathing note about the importance of professional writers using correct grammar. He retaliated by complaining to his manager about me. (He showed her my final note, but not all the correspondence that led up to it.)

Despite the fact that I was correct on the matter and he unwilling to listen, I was the one who got the reprimand. The grounds, quite correctly, were that as a senior manager in the organization, I had acted unprofessionally toward a non-management worker. The fact that I was right had no impact on the matter. I kept my job only because I had my own evidence. I was able to show to what lengths I had gone to try to work with him before losing my cool.

In my part of the organization at least, we all cheered when the young man was finally let go.

That was a long time ago, and I really do hope that the young writer has since then learned the very simple rule that applies to “whomever” and “whoever”.

The error that he made was one of overcorrecting. He correctly noted that the “who(m)ever wants information” clause of the sentence was the object of the preposition “to”, and so he used “whom” (as in “to whom it may concern”). However, “who(m)ever” plays a role in the dependent clause also, as subject of the clause. And this role trumps the relationship with the preposition.

Garner puts it this way: Look at whatever grammatically follows (not preceeds) the “ever”. If it’s the verb of the following clause, use “whoever”. If it’s not the verb, use “whomever”. If you are in doubt, don’t overcorrect. Stick with “whoever”.

I learned an even simpler rule that accomplishes the same result: Substitute “the person who” or “the person whom” for “whoever” or “whomever”, and see how it sounds. The correct structure immediately becomes obvious. “Our company’s services are indispensable to the person who wants up-to-date information.” Not “the person whom wants the information.” Whoever, not whomever.

No question. No argument. No reprimand.

Do you have a favorite grammatical peeve, dear reader? Or a point of grammar that has always confused you? Please let me know. I will be happy to clear things up. I’d bet my Strunk & White on it.

Macbeth

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It looks like the Boston St. John’s Alumni group is going to read Macbeth in March. This was the seminar leader’s choice, not mine, but I have to admit to a special personal fondness for Macbeth. It was the first book I remember reading. I was in kindergarten at the time and yearned for my mother to read that book to me because it had a picture of witches in it. We sat at the kitchen table together reading. It must have been winter – I remember that it was dark outside. Or maybe that was just the effect of the story. The reading was slow going as my mother had to explain words and phrases to me and often used a dictionary. In the course of persisting through Macbeth, I learned to read! You can imagine my reaction to “Dick and Jane” the following year in first grade. In fact, you can probably explain a lot about my personality because of this experience with Macbeth.