July 03, 2004
gramansian
Sadly, this category is "obscurata". I took a grammar test this evening, while sitting on my deck listening to someone chainsawing over on the next street. The wind was soft, the mosquitos insistent, and the sunset muted. Life is unexuberantly nice.
You are a MASTER of the English language!
While your English is not exactly perfect,
you are still more grammatically correct than
just about every American. Still, there is
always room for improvement...
How grammatically sound are you?
I am realizing that I do subconsciously judge people around me by their formal grammar skill. It seems to be a class-based assumption and it makes me very uncomfortable when I notice myself doing it.
On the other side of that, a number of people I've worked with in the last few years use a distinctive contraction that seems to be common through the western Virginia/Maryland/Eastern Pennsylvania region. One drops the infinitive "to be" from a sentence like "This house needs to be painted" leaving you with "the house needs painted." A passive infinitive contraction. It makes so much sense! Why say those extra two words? The sentence motors along perfectly well without it. These shoes needs polished. Sadie wants married. You want paid. This tool needs fixed. What a great contraction.
The Appalachian grammars (of which there are many different flavors) have a very proud heritage. "Southern mountain dialect (as the folk speech of Appalachia is called by linguists) is certainly archaic, but the general historical period it represents can be narrowed down to the days of the first Queen Elizabeth, and can be further particularized by saying that what is heard today is actually a sort of Scottish-flavored Elizabethan English." Yum.
I found this specific word that I'm going to try to use more often: Haet. As in, "Not worth a haet!" Haet means the smallest thing that can be conceived of, and comes from Deil hae't (Devil have it.) I haven't had a haet to eat tonight!
On a totally different note, take an implicit association test of what you think of the presidential candidates!
Posted by argus at July 3, 2004 01:24 AM