Archive for August, 2007
With the death today of 89-year-old baseball and broadcasting legend [tag]Phil Rizzuto[/tag], the tributes poured in and the radio interviews abounded.
I liked the comment by Yankee owner [tag]George Steinbrenner[/tag] that "Heaven must’ve needed a shortstop," but I was taken aback by the eloquence of former Detroit Tigers broadcaster [tag]Ernie Harwell[/tag].
It wasn’t so much what Mr. Harwell said as the eloquence with which he did so that surprised and delighted me. At one point he noted in an ESPN radio interview how baseball announcers often become part of "the warp and weave of their community," which got me scrambling to look up warp and weave but also left me speechless that baseball people could wax so poetically whereas TV newscasters, movie stars and other cultural icons simply spew forth nonsense and guttural detritus.
[tag]Vin Scully[/tag] is another baseball announcer who commands the English language as few others do.
Ah, the dulcet tones of summer inspired by the crack of the bat!
As I mentioned in my previous explanation of modifiers, these little words and phrases need to immediately precede or immediately succeed that which they modify. If not, you can end up with two grammar errors. One is called a misplaced modifier; the other is labeled a dangling modifier.
Let’s look at a misplaced modifier first. Here’s an example:
Looking over the menu, a cheeseburger was chosen by Sam.
Actually, we have two problems here. The first is the passive voice construction, but that was necessary for me to make my point. The modifier, looking over the menu, currently modifies cheesburger since it precedes that noun. If we correct this by moving the modifier and leaving the passive construction, we get:
A cheesburger was chosen by Sam, looking over the menu.
It’s still not very good English, so why don’t we just say:
Looking over the menu, Sam chose a cheeseburger.
That works.
Now, let’s examine a dangling modifier:
Walking into the room, the phone rang.
Literally, the phone is walking into the room in this tortured example.
We need to add someone to do the walking so we can un-dangle the modifier of walking into the room:
Walking into the room, we heard the phone ring.
Obviously, there are other ways to correct the original sentence, but I hope you now see what a dangling modifier is and how to correct it.
Leave it to the British to develop slang that cuts to the quick.
Case in point: Los Angeles Galaxy soccer superstar [tag]David Beckham[/tag] has been mostly unable to play since arriving in the states because his ankle is injured and troublesome. Here, the expression in describing the injury is to call it “day to day.” In other words, it’s hard to predict when the ankle will return to normal.
In contrast, the British say, “He has a wonky ankle” or “His ankle is wonky.”
I looked wonky up, and it fits nicely: “shaky, groggy or unsteady.”
I guess wonky would also apply to anyone who drank too much as well, though the dictionary said the slang usage of this British slang means “stupid, boring, unattractive.”
I’ve never thought about slang usages of slang before, but there you go with an example from the home of English.
I struggled to map in my mind which topic to cover after phrases, which seemed like a logical follow-up to clauses. Eventually, I decided on modifiers.
Now, without getting into the many different forms of modifiers, I want to start out basic building blocks on this topic by giving you two ironclad rules concerning modifiers.
Actually, they are conjoined rules, so you could say they comrpise just one dictate, to wit: Modifiers must appear immediately before or immediately after that which they modify. Otherwise, they become errors known as [tag]dangling modifiers[/tag] and [tag]misplaced modifiers[/tag].
Here are two examples of correctly placed modifiers:
"Hungy, John stopped at McDonald’s to order some food."
"John, hungry, stopped at McDonald’s to order some food."
Notice that both of these sentences adhere to the only-before and only-after rule. John is being modified, and the modifier is hungry.
Now look at this:
"John stopped at McDonald’s for food, hungry."
This is a classical misplaced modifier error, which we are all prone to do in speech. In writing, however, we should be able to catch these flubs.
Next time: More on dangling and misplaced modifiers.
I’m not sure how other languages handle this (probably similarly since humans are the same the world over), but we Americans tend to use some pretty weird words to show our affection.
For instance, when my dog is bugging me for attention, I’ll say, "You little creep."
My wife, who is Chinese and for whom English is a second language, keeps asking, "What does creep mean?"
When I tell her, she says, "Oh, so you’re talking about yourself."
Anyway, the point is that I’m using a put-down word–creep–as a term of endearment.
Whatever.
Actually, I had never before heard of these infant videos since my only offspring is a grown woman already, but a study has shown that the vids “Brainy Baby” and “Baby Einstein,” designed to teach English language skills to the very young, actually retard the kids’ learning process.
Each hour of watching these videos (in the study) reduced the number of words the 8- to 16-month-old children learned by six to eight over their non-video-trained peers.
Could it be possible if a kid watched enough of these videos that s/he would achieve “word deficit”–be unable to speak because they’ve unlearned every word and gone into a hole?
Just kidding on that, but I’m always suspicious of studies. I remember in the 1970s studies confirmed the onset of the second ice age, and guess what? Now studies confirm we’re facing global warming (even though temperatures still aren’t as high as they were in the Middle Ages).
It’s been my experience that studies usually reach the conclusion that will lead to the study group’s earning more cash to keep studying. You know–why put yourself out of business?
Read “Baby Einstein” for the details.
Here’s a novel way to start your week–a Grammar Quiz from the SAT that will give you the results.
Now, now, no cheating! (On one answer I disagree. It was not incorrect, just a weak form.)
The joint should try hiring back some copy editors who actually know English grammar, but Mr. Spell Checker–in all his ignorance–rules the roost at the Los Angeles Times.
Seen as a headline in the paper’s Sports section on Friday, August 3, 2007: Dodgers put on a clinic, for who?
I’m sure there’s boatload of people out there who will argue, with all the semantic nonsense they can conjure up, that this is perfectly good English, but sorry, folks, it ain’t.
A preposition, i.e., for, requires the objective usage, i.e., whom.
So it should be, Dodgers put on a clinic, [but] for whom?
It’s also a run-on, requiring either the but I added or a semi-colon.
The main distinguishing feature of phrases is that they lack a subject-verb combination. They can certainly contain nouns and/or verb forms, but they are not joined as they are in a clause.
Phrases can be used as nouns, adjectives and adverbs.
A prepositional phrase contains a preposition. In the morning is a prepositional phrase.
A gerund phrase uses a verb as a noun (which is called a gerund). Walking alone is a gerund phrase.
An infinitive phrase uses the infinitive form of a verb. To go downtown is an infinitive phrase.
Depending upon how you use these different phrases, they can become nouns, adjectives or adverbs.
He exercises everyday in the morning–an adverb usage.
In the morning is the best time to exercise–noun usage (although leaving the in off this is better English–this is just an example!).
Coffee in the morning is a real waker-upper–adjective usage.
Not to age myself (to not age myself? LOL), but I remember back when I started as a cub newspaper reporter that page composition was done by linotype. On a linotype machine, which produced hot metal slugs that would be arranged together and used for printing, the characters of the alphabet were arranged in vertical columns by frequency of use. Thus, the first two rows were ETAOIN and SHRDLU.
When a linotypist made an error, s/he couldn’t correct the error, so it was a simple procedure to run one’s finger down the first two columns and create a nonsense, one-line slug that could be discarded.
Thus the fictional personage of Etaoin Shrdlu was born.
I remember when we particularly disliked a story that we had had to cover, or an article that we had written, we would byline it By Etaoin Shrdlu.
Of course, this would never make it past the copy editor. Today, it doesn’t matter since most if not all copy editors have been fired and replaced by Mr. Spell Checker, and linotypes have been melted down to make skyscrapers in Shanghai, or some such place. Or maybe it was Yugos.
Anyway, I came upon this blast from the past while once again researching "phrases in the English language" online.
I promise I’ll get to an explanation of phrases and their usages tomorrow, but for now let Mr. Shrdlu take center stage. If, however, you want to keep current with new English phrases (I think they mean slang and vernacular sayings), you can subscribe to Phrase-a-Week. I did for the heck of it.
0 Comments 
