CAN WE TALK?

I want to unburden myself of some of my pet peeves about, well—language, speech, talk, grammar, and the food pyramid. Bear with me. Remember, I am venting. These contents are ramblings that have come to my mind.

Unbeknownst to me, the original food pyramid, ingrained in my mind from my school days, changed over the years. In effect, it did a headstand.

I am not in school anymore, so how should I know the food pyramid changed? After all, my parents taught me to believe everything the teacher said and respect those with official titles. Being such a good listener, I thought the healthy balance of foods would be the same way forever.

My parents were unaware of the peril they may have put me in by teaching me to respect the teacher, police, doctors, and rabbi. They insisted that all authoritarians were called by their titles, unquestioningly, and looked up to with respect.

In grammar school, now known as elementary school—case in point as to how even designations have changed names—the teacher often chose me to hand out papers to the other students in the classroom. One teacher sternly instructed that if anyone was talking, not to give that student an assignment paper. 

With unwavering respect, I obediently walked by a student without leaving him a sheet of paper. Threateningly, another classmate, whose name I recall clearly but chose not to reveal, said, "You didn’t give my boyfriend a paper. I'm gonna beat your butt at 3."

Putting me in harm's way certainly was not the intent of my parents. However, as I exited the brick building at the end of the school day, the girl from my class was in the school lot. A crowd had gathered around to watch a fight. I cannot say which left a starker memory, her standing there with her dukes up or the pungent smell of her daily body odor.

Upon leaving the school to walk home with my friend, while naively wondering who the crowd had assembled for, an upperclassman (sixth grader), unknown to me, came to my rescue. He walked by my side to escort me to safety. I probably could have used the police officer or rabbi, but luckily due to my guardian angel, I escaped without needing a doctor.

Listening to a guest on the radio show hosted by my husband, I learned that the term politically correct is no longer, well, politically correct. Instead, now that term is considered derogatory. Tell me, was it not appropriate to tell the descriptive story of my fist-yielding classmate?

Where does it end? Should I not use the term colorblind to describe someone who does not see a difference between a white and a Black or brown person?

A generation ago or more, I learned that the traditional meaning of the term colorblind was no longer used to describe people like my father, who was unable to distinguish colors. Even my mother charmingly said that my father was colorblind. How was I to know about the switch to a gentler term color challenged? 

Similarly, a recent obituary caught my attention when it stated the deceased was “differently abled.” That was a new terminology to me. When did the meaning of the word disabled leave the lexicon? When will the latest twist in the usage of the substitute term go out of vogue?

There are certain people I have known who were 'larger than life.' I wonder if I am no longer supposed to use that phrase. I am thinking now about a friend Bill Flock, a lawyer/psychologist, a few years my senior, who was at our home when a discussion arose about the word anxious. He explained that you are not anxious to hear about good things. The appropriate word here, according to Bill, is eager.

Now, and forever, when pondering the usage of the word anxious vs. eager, I am reminded of one of the best people I have known. It assures me that our friend, Bill Flock, will never be forgotten.

As I vent about the changes in speech, my husband tells me that the English language evolves. Huh? Why bother going to school and learning the three R’s—reading, 'riting and ‘rithmetic, if the techniques are constantly changing? We no longer use the letter x as a symbol in multiplication. Say what? I mean, how did that happen, when and why?

Try spelling words like pseudonym, rhetoric and rhetorical by looking them up in a dictionary. Growing up, whenever I asked my brother Stu, three years my senior, how to spell a word, unrelentingly, he would tell me to look it up in the dictionary. My routine comeback would be, how do you look it up in the dictionary without knowing how to spell it? Some things are just so much easier done with computers.

Anyone who could win the 9th-grade spelling bee, correctly spelling the word spherical, makes it understandable that he could flippantly tell his little sister to look up words in the dictionary. Those using computers these days have no idea how difficult it was to guess at appropriate spellings.

My eldest brother Nate picks up printing errors, such as using an o instead of a zero. The lack of the usage of hyphens these days is the hobbyhorse for my brother Al. Stu tells me dictionaries change.

We used to joke around in our childhood home by saying, "ain’t ain’t in the dictionary," until one day when the word appeared. Additionally, Stu tells me that the way we learned to pronounce the word 'often' with a silent letter t is now in the dictionary showing the pronunciation acceptable either way.

Seriously, when a teacher told us something, we thought that it was set-in-stone. My husband, an attorney, was at a deposition when he was newly a member of the Bar. A teacher was deposed while on his deathbed. When my husband questioned him about the facts in the case by asking what had transpired, he scolded, “Young man, plants transpire, events occur.”

Again, according to the dictionary, it is now permissible to use those words interchangeably. All those years of having fun telling that story and probably getting a multitude of people to use the word 'occur' may have been for naught.

This tale reminds me of another story my husband likes to tell. We attended a religious service while we were in Chicago for a wedding. When a lay congregant stood addressing the attendees, a fellow congregant said he would like to complement his story. The gentleman quickly responded, "Is that with an i or an e?” Without skipping a beat, the man replied, with an e of course.

One tale begets another. My husband and I knew that we were using the word 'bad' correctly when saying, ‘I feel bad.' Whereas some people we know insist that the correct terminology is to 'feel badly,' that is incorrect. We use the example to show the appropriate use of the word badly, for example, ‘I hurt myself badly.’ Before computers and the ability to get immediate answers online, although we both hold advanced degrees, we registered for a high school level night course to confirm that we were using the terms correctly.

On the first night of the course, we realized we were too advanced for the class, but we got our answer, and we do not ‘feel bad’ that we dropped out of the course. I must confess that we will feel bad if the incorrectly spoken terminology, 'feeling badly,' becomes so commonly used that it replaces the meaning of feeling 'bad' and makes substituting the word 'badly' acceptable.

For example, track the use of the word 'like' taking the place of the word 'as.' This discussion reminds me of the commercial that boasted, ‘Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.' To be grammatically correct, the commercial should have said, “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.’

As part of the impact of the current global pandemic, new terminology is flourishing on the news. By now, you have all heard the use of the term ‘food insecure.' Hearing a news anchor spout, 'immunity inequality' made me wonder why political correctness is considered obsolete.

While listening to the news, my husband picked up on a reporter incorrectly using the word fulsome to describe something as very full when the word 'fulsome' traditionally means disgusting.

With his computer out of service, my brother Stu called to check on the word ‘restaurateur.’ He heard a reporter use ‘restauranteur’ with an ‘n'. Upon looking it up, I found, “The French word for a person who owns or runs a restaurant is restaurateur, with no 'n,' and this is the spelling used most often in English, especially in edited writing.

“Restauranteur, with an n, appears in English about once for every ten instances of restaurateur. But while this spelling is common and has a long history, many people consider it wrong.”

The next question my brother posed was the pronunciation of the word wreak, as in wreak havoc. He told me a commentator on the news said it incorrectly by saying wreck havoc. He asked me to play the computer voice enunciating the correct pronunciation.

"Go know," as my mother would have exclaimed, that the computer would have a mechanism to play a voice announcing the appropriate pronunciation of words. It is a wonder what our old schoolmarms would have thought of this modern technology?

What was the first thing I did when I joined the Roselle Facebook page—Roselle, New Jersey—the borough where I lived during my formative years from 1953-1965? I listened to the librarian read a book to the children titled “I Will Be Fierce.” She ended by explaining the latest meaning of the word fierce.

After first offering the standard dictionary definitions of the word, she reported that ‘fierce’ has a new meaning. Rather than being a form of aggressiveness, the added understanding reveals the word to mean, "displaying a heartfelt and powerful intensity."

How does an elder respond when a child says, ‘I’m fierce?' If my grandchild said that, I would be horrified. All this indicates is that maybe I write too much and need to read more to learn up-to-date dictionary entries that were approved since I left school.

This discussion brings back memories of when my daughter brought home a book from first grade, which the students in her class wrote. In her bio, a child stated that she lives with her two mommies. That time, my daughter educated me.

How are we to know even a simple word went out of fashion?Among/amongst, which is it? After looking it up, I laughed when seeing that amongst is old-fashioned.

Frequently, the words 'I' and 'me,' are used in reverse. More than from diagramming sentences, which, unfortunately, my teachers were wont to demonstrate, I know the correct word to use by hearing it used in a sentence. In one of my radio interviews, I used 'I' and 'me' incorrectly in two sentences. I realized immediately after misspeaking.

I suppose by speaking rapidly to answer questions posed by the host, I did not think first. Almost like using slang, I uttered the commonly mistaken usage of the two words. Dauntingly, the dilemma is that most people probably thought I was correct in my use of the misused duo. Remember it is proper to say, ‘speaking with’ rather than ‘talking to.’

Moving on, consider the words, to, two and too. I must have spent a lot of time on those heterographs in grammar school. Almost everyone uses the correct spelling of two for the number. It is the second 'o' as in 'too often' that tends to be left off.

As for fewer or less than, I often notice those words incorrectly used lately on the news. Easy directives to remember are ‘fewer in number’ and ‘less in amount.' For example, there are fewer than five days left until the holiday and, there is less water in my glass than yours.

Gee, now do we have to do a tutorial on when to use, then/than, effect/affect, edition/addition? Furthermore, is it further or farther? I call my brother Stu when I need to distinguish which word fits the sentence.

When my children ignored my prompting about using two spaces between sentences, I was baffled. Eventually, I learned from them about the most updated usage requiring only a single space between sentences. It has been one of my most challenging writing habits to change.

Being a staff writer for a newspaper, I learned the latest opinion in the usage of commas. That relates to the Oxford or serial comma. When listing three or more items, the final comma, which comes before ‘and,' which I learned was a necessity, is now optional and not used in the newspaper where I am on staff.

There are so many rules behind comma usage. Some turn up differently now than I learned in school, which has caused me to stick with the computerized grammar helpers.

Next, I would like to grumble about Facebook birthday postings, which often lead to incorrect usage of a comma. Why do people put a comma before their name when they write to someone to wish them a happy birthday? By adding a comma before your name, it becomes a greeting to yourself. It should just be, for example, Happy birthday Sharon, not Happy birthday, Sharon.

The thing that bothers me is that others may think that I am incorrectly saying the words or writing them wrong in sentences. They may also believe that I use too many or too few commas. Either I use what I learned in the 1950s and 1960s or, on the contrary, incorporate the latest teachings in grammar. Not everyone from my era, however, is up to date on those advents.

What would Strunk and White say in The Elements of Style? Are the old linguists passé due to the provision of grammar and spell check on the computer?

In my humble opinion, or using the acronym IMHO, as adopted by current technological language minimalists, change is not always for the better. Oh no, even IMHO is changing from the original meaning. A quick check on the internet shows, “It's common knowledge that IMHO stands for 'in my humble opinion,' except internet polls indicate a majority believes it means 'in my honest opinion' May 3, 2018.”

While I do not profess to be a grammarian, far from it, I have probably just scratched the surface. There are so many nuances in language these days that it can be overwhelming. Write to me with your thoughts if you dare. Thank you, my dears, and please do not scare any roaming deer.