On Language

May 21, 2024

Two men strike up a conversation at a bar.

First man asks: “Where did you go to school?”

Second man responds: “Florida Atlantic University.”

First man then asks: “Where is Florida Atlantic University?

The second man responds: “Florida Atlantic is in Boca Raton.”

The second man follows up: “Where did you go to school?

The first man responds: “I went to Harvard.”

The second man inquires: “Where is Harvard at?”

The first man replies: Harvard is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and, my good man, you should never end a sentence with a preposition.”

After giving it some thought, the second man rephrases his question: “Where is Harvard at, a#*hole?”

Language is a complicated thing with all sorts of rules and taboos. You can’t end a sentence with a preposition, or can you? You shouldn’t split infinitives. God forbid your modifier is dangling. How do you feel about double negatives? Do you use apostrophes, hyphens, and semicolons correctly? Do you adhere to the Oxford comma? (Refer to the last sentence for an example of such.) As it turns out, grammar and grammar usage is a living and breathing organism that is continually adapting and evolving over time. Constructs that we take for granted or as immutable today were often (Is it pronounced off-ten or off-in?) very different years ago. For example, “yours” wasn’t always spelled that way. Once, it was spelt “your’s.” There are hundreds of examples like this that drive grammar scolds crazy, and are highlighted in Anne Curzan’s book, “Says Who,” or is it “Who Says?” It’s “Says Who.” She is a Professor of English at the University of Michigan.

Grammar is important. Comedian Norm McDonald once reported on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, “Yippee, Jerry Rubin is dead,” which is what you get when you add a comma to “Yippie Jerry Rubin is dead.” Commas can kill. The biggest word geek of all time may have been our own Noah Webster. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded Merriam-Webster as the G & C Merriam Co. in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1843, after Noah Webster died, the company bought the rights to An American Dictionary of the English Language from Webster’s estate. All Merriam-Webster dictionaries trace their lineage to this source. My wife and daughter can also trace their lineage to Noah Webster. Me, not so much. Anne Curzan coined a word that better describes the inner word nerd in all of us; the inner word nerd, who screams when they hear the word “less” when it should be “fewer.” Hmmm…shouldn’t the word “they” in the previous sentence be singular? Anyway, her word is “grammando.” As in, when he heard someone use the word “good” as an adverb, he went full grammando.

Politics is not immune to discussions over language. For years, William Safire, an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter wrote the “On Language” column in The New York Times Magazine about popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics. Today, we have heated discussions over what is called political correctness. Locally, the Easthampton School Committee was embroiled in a controversy over an e-mail sent by the leading candidate for the Superintendent’s position that used the word “ladies,” which was considered a microaggression, which is a word that actually appears in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

The PC debate revolves around two key questions according to Curzan.

“What is actually involved in using language that is inclusive and not known to be offensive?”

“Do these efforts to promote inclusive language inappropriately curb our freedom of speech and even silence people?”

First off, we need to put aside the term “political correctness” because it makes many people go crazy. There are good grammarians on both sides after all. The famous basketball player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, simply defined it as “a relatively benign combination of good old-fashioned manners and simple sensitivity.” But (Is it okay to start a sentence with the word “but”? Yes.) debates about language are almost always about more than just language. As Curzan goes on to write, “…debates about inclusive and sensitive language are about who has the power to call the linguistic shots about what language is and isn’t inclusive.” Language has never been neutral. Anyone who is Italian, Irish, Polish, Jewish, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Asian, African, or gay can tell you that. (There’s that Oxford comma again.) As these groups gained more power, the derogatory terms used against them became taboo. Some words we can’t even say. Preferred terms for groups do change over time, thus the controversy over using the term “ladies” versus women. Unfortunately, in an attempt to be more inclusive, we sometimes overshoot the mark. I thought Harvard overshot in 2016 when it changed the title of the heads of its residential Houses from Master to Faculty Dean. Harvard didn’t intend for the title “Master” to be hurtful because its roots are from centuries-old European terms for a teacher or a head of a household, but some took it that way. Clearly, some of us need to be more aware of how certain language, whether intentional or not, has the power to hurt, and some of us need to chill out about the slightest of linguistic infractions.