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Here in the US of A, my neighbor – she’s down from Canada – takes off walking her dog. Says, “Off to finish our constitutional.”
I warned her, “Don’t use that word this week, it can be dangerous and start arguments.”
Here, in the States, electioneering is a full contact sport this year. And this week is Election Day.
I know, that’s just the fancy British way of saying, “Walking is healthy, so I’m taking my dog for a walk.”
But, ever since the press decreed that words mean whatever the speaker (even other speakers) might later say they mean, instead of what they meant when they came out of their mouth, ‘constitutional’ is just a meaningless adjective. Sounds grandiose. Impressive. ‘Constitutional’, as a word, has escaped its original legal meaning.
Got me to thinking: we used to write ‘the constitution’ out with ‘Constitution’ capitalized. Just like we used to write ‘the Bible’ with 'Bible' capitalized. I mean, ‘The Bible’, since it is the title of a book.
Hey! ‘The Constitution’, with ‘The’ capitalized is just a shortcut for ‘The Constitution of the United States of America’, title of an important document.
Just like we use to write ‘The President’ with both words capitalized; until those words became either a shame or a joke.
trains wreck, nerves wrack.
stories trick, critics track.
...because stories that trek
rock my rhyme but ruck of wrack
yet wreck my alliteration...
Is it ‘Mary and me’ or is it ‘Mary and I’?
Trust me! Sometimes writing ‘Mary and me’ is the right way to write it. Sometimes not.
--
Writing ‘Me and Mary’ is never right! Mary isn't mean! Write ‘Mary and me’.
--
Here’s an easy trick to figure it out!
Just write it without that pesky Mary. Then, say it out loud. Your ears already know which pronoun is correct.
--
First example: you, the author, are describing what you did: ‘Mary and me thanked people for coming to the rescue.’
Rewrite it dropping that other person: ‘Me thanked people for coming to the rescue.’
Now, (the magic happens here,) say it out loud.
Hey! That’s not right! Me never thanked people for anything. I always thank them!
Your ears know which pronoun is correct.
So, write it the other way! ‘I thanked people for coming to the rescue.’
Now, say it out loud. Your ears know which pronoun is correct.
The rest of the trick?
Add back in that Mary person: ‘Mary and I thanked people for coming to the rescue.’ When you add back the other person, the pronoun does not change but you always write ‘Mary and I’ and never ‘I and Mary’. Go figure.
--
Second example: you, the author, are describing what happened: ‘People came over to Mary and I and thanked Mary and I for coming to the rescue.’
Rewrite it dropping that other person: ‘People came over to I and thanked I for coming to the rescue.’
Now, (the magic happens here,) say it out loud.
Hey! That’s not right! Nobody ever thanked I for anything. They always thank me!
So, write it the other way! ‘People came over to me and thanked me for coming to the rescue.’
Now, say it out loud. Your ears know which pronoun is correct.
The rest of the trick?
Add back in that Mary person: ‘People came over to Mary and me and thanked Mary and me for coming to the rescue.’ When you add back the other person, the pronoun does not change.
--
Hint: Simplify the two of you as ‘we’ if it sounds better than ‘us’.
‘We thanked people for coming to the rescue.’ works.
‘Us thanked people for coming to the rescue.’ doesn’t.
‘People came over to Mary and me and thanked us for coming to the rescue.’ works.
‘People came over to Mary and me and thanked we for coming to the rescue.’ doesn’t.
Trust your ears!
--
Danged English 101 crap: The grammatical explanation is that when writing about things you do, you are the subject of the sentence. The pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’ are for the subject.
--
When writing about things done to you, you are the object of the sentence. The pronouns ‘me’ and ‘us’ are for the object.
--
But, you can’t fool your ears.
Think you could use a 'first reader' or a 'last reader' since your readers report being sidetracked by wrong word choices?
Like this one, “She rubber her chin thinking I spoke of facial hair.“ Rather than rubbed.
My guess is that you type better than I do but your brain grabs the easier/more common word as it talks to your fingers. (Or, your fingers guess the ending and override the brain. Muscle memory gone amok.)
SOL provides lists of editors, or you might blog an appeal to your followers for a reader.
But, this slows down the process, since you then need to review their findings. Resubmit or question changes you do not understand; do NOT override your editor. If they didn’t know more than you, you wouldn’t be using them, would you?
…
Otherwise, you might just do as I do and label those reports mere ‘word-play’, a type of poetry that makes the reader play along with your jests.
Of course, my wrong-o word choices are always deliberate. Just a jest. Geste. Whatever.
“Her face is so very expressive. She shifts her cheek bones, even her nose when she smiles: She rubber her chin thinking I spoke of facial hair. Then she reddened and slapped me. She smiled a different smile…”
Word-play. Poetry.
Not, repeat not, fumble fingers.
The reign in Spain is mostly for Juan Carlos, who reigned in Spain.
Reindeer are named for the reins you use to rein them in.
Rain? The water that rains from up above.
The real title for this blog is
Homonyms! Love 'em or Leave 'em? But only English majors would open this page to read such a blog. No doubt hoping for a poem elucidating the paradox. Except they wouldn't get past the corruption of the word them. So they wouldn't read it either.
Too bad. English majors spent the past fifty years twisting homonyms into homophones (spelling doesn't matter - the words sound the same) and homographs - (spelled the same but pronounced differently) with the proviso that all of the types of differentiated words are somehow alike but meaning different things. Since I am older than most of them, I call all those types of words homonyms as my third grade teacher taught me.
Which leaves you (and me) the strong, the silent, the majority! Authors. Poets. Edi-(kaf, kaf)-tors. Critix. -(Cretinx.)- Ideas are our bullets but the words we choose aim those bullets.
1) Homonyms! Love 'em.
Conveying origin, evoking related words, assigning possession: homonyms are the blessing of the English Language. When we speak, using words that sound alike, most folks can infer the meaning based on emphasis, pauses, eye-winks, elbow nudges, head nods, and all the gestures a body or expressive face can add to the speech.
Not so the written word.
Any one word can be called on to mean more than one thing. Let's follow the word there as used in the following story:
[Tense music rises as does the curtain]
"Over there are the dummies who are corrupting the language," the villain hissed without pausing or inflecting.
The hero protests,"Those folks over there?"
The hero nods and elbows a convenient stagehand, continuing, "There not corrupting anything!"
The villain contradicts the hero, in a slightly higher and more rapid patter, "There foible of confusing homonyms has grammar nazis pulling out [heaves a sigh] there hair."
[Fade to black]
Those of us who know and love homonyms read the story above as a fable, after we substitute the correct homonym. We grasp that the moral is "Choosing the correct homonyms impart exactly the information we had intended as soon as the words are read. Otherwise, the reader has to read and re-read (and dodge the occasional nudge) in order to make sense of the writing."
For those who don't appreciate homonyms, if you are confused it is your own fault.
OKOKOK
Restating the fable from above:
"Over there are the dummies who are corrupting the language," the villain hissed.
The hero protests,"Those folks over there? They're not corrupting anything!"
The villain contradicts the hero, "Their foible of confusing homonyms has grammar nazis pulling out their hair."
2) Homonyms! Leave 'em.
I've heard that the English language has more words than any other language. Franco-Latin overlaying Anglo poised atop Saxon with loanwords from every other language from every culture and planet we've encountered, grok?
So many words so damned many spellings.
Who needs 'em?
Spell them the way they sound!
As you read, say the sentence to yourself and the pathways built into your language skills automatically choose the word that the writer meant.
Except... those neural pathways were created as different words were juggled. Kids learning to read in the same new world where same sounding words are spelled the same are not juggling different words. They're just seeing the same word that sometimes means one thing and sometimes another without any hints from the spelling.
3) Like 'em or not, we are stuck with homonyms!
Homonyms serve a real purpose giving writers an advantage. Science can be learned. Knowing the language is a science. Readers pick up the clues from the words they read and, when they are told the correct words, they can understand the story. Well, they understand what they see written. Story telling is an art.
Which is a whole 'nother blog!
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