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Ralph's Guide to Grammar and Turnips
Copyright, 2005, by Ralph. All rights reserved. And
revered. Whom.
Introduction
Today, copy editors are enlightened. We know that grammar
must be descriptive, not prescriptive. We know that it is
the ever-changing language that is boss, not some set of rigid, complicated
rules that tell people how to use and how not to use the language.
With this in mind, Ralph's presents a set of
rigid, complicated rules that consists largely of telling people how to use and how not to use the language,
and ensuring that there is no innovation whatsoever in its use and
presentation.
Be strong in mind.
Subject-Verb Agreement
It is incumbent upon the editor to ensure that the
subject and the verb in each sentence agree—in number, in gender, and in
preferred color of wallpaper. In sentences where they do not agree, people will
laugh hysterically at the subject, the verb, and the editor, and never take it
or it or her or him seriously again. See the following examples.
SUBJECT-VERB DISAGREEMENT
Subject: Hey, let’s do sashimi for dinner tonight.
Verb: Forget it! I hate sashimi. They never cook it
right.
Subject: They do, too! How about Mexican, then? I love
Mexican.
Verb: I hate Mexican. We’ll have French.
Subject: No!!! Too snobbish!
Verb: You have to listen to me.
Subject: Dooo not!
Verb: Do tooo! The subject must change to meet the
person, gender, and neck size of the verb. I read it in a book.
Subject: Wrong! I am the subject, and, I quoteth, “The
subject determines the verb in a sentence.”
Verb: Where’d you read that, in Dr. Spock?
Subject: It’s true. It was IN WRITING. So you have to listen.
Verb: Dooo not! In fact, you are the subject, and that
makes me the ruler. You are subject to my commands, my disloyal little subject.
Subject: You’re gonna be subject to my fist!
Editor: Stop that, you two! Put a lid on it! You’re
having frozen fish sticks for dinner tonight, and if you don’t behave, I won’t
thaw them out and cook them before I give them to you.
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
Subject: . . .
Verb: . . .
Subject: I say editor be of questionable family line!
Verb: I agree. And I believe a proper description would
involve a donkey.
Subject: Wanna play checkers?
Verb: OK.
Pronoun
This means ‘in favor of nouns,’ as opposed to ‘opposed to
nouns.’ See also proverb.
Proverb
(Go verbs!) "The early bird catches the worm."
―proverb. "The early worm gets caught by the early bird." ―another
proverb. "Personally, I don't like worms." ―antiverb, or at least antiworm.
Antecedent
(Down with Cedents!) This is a particularly difficult-
(and impressive-) sounding word describing, simply, the noun that a pronoun
refers to. Imagine that!
Procedent
This means ‘in favor of cedents.’ Should people ask what
a cedent is, recite a random verse of Genesis, and then assure them that if
they knew what a cedent was, they would very certainly support it.
Case
Now here is a word you can use to get on people’s cases
about. In case you are unaware, we explain: The case is the form of a noun
showing how the particular noun is used in a sentence. A recent case study
showed that there are the subjective case, the objective case, the possessive
case, the book case, the lost case, the space case, and the Case of the Missing
Jewels.
Of course, if we are to be honest, this is completely
unnecessary. A sentence would be just as easily comprehended without cases—in
most cases. (Some languages get by just fine without cases, in case you didn't
know.) Still, the case in point—these are the complexities that add dollars
onto editors’ paychecks.
Remember, it is not what you say, but how you case it.
Mood
Let’s be frank: If we want to discuss mood, we should be
exploring what Miles Davis has over other trumpet players. But for a group of people
(copy editors) who describe punctuation, capitalization, and how to write numbers as style, it
is probably acceptable that we describe the intent of a verb (fact,
possibility, or command) as mood. Miles Davis would not have approved of our
profession, anyhow.
And to their credit, the moods sound particularly
impressive: the indicative mood, the subjunctive mood, the imperative mood, and
the Moody Blues. And for those who are currently in the imperative mood, see
the following examples.
Indicative mood:
The wild cows moo moodily at the moon.
Imperative mood:
Moo moodily at the moon.
Subjunctive mood:
Had only you mooed moodily at the moon
. . .
Moody blues:
Cows in white satin, never mooing at the
moon . . .
Hyperbole
This is a tremendously superb term, one which delights
millions, fights poverty, finds cures for diseases, and shines your shoes. And
while it does not call to mind anything profound to say (it means, simply,
‘exaggeration’), it sounds Latin or medical or at very least sophisticated.
Ralph's suggests using it often, especially when sending out bills (which of
course should be as exaggerated as the text that they are for).
Interjection
Interjection means 'between jections.' And this is for
lack of a better term. The grammarian looks at these words and says, "Uh,
they're, um, not nouns, so to speak. And they're not, you know, verbs. Wow,
they aren't adjectives or adverbs or function words, either. In fact, as far as
I can see, they have no grammatical function whatsoever. They are just, um,
interjections.
Grammarians are embarrassed both by this part of speech’s
lame label and by their inability to assign any grandiose rules to it. Still,
to the common person, the name sounds impressive, especially when put into
different forms: (e.g., The word is used interjectionally [Excellent! This use
can add zeros onto your bill].)
Grammarians' embarrassment is made worse by the influence
that interjections have over our words. Consider the two examples below, one
without interjections and one with, to see how strong that influence is.
Without:
Is this my bill?
With:
Whoa, boy, is this, uh--Oh, God!―my, uh, uh, my―Oh, have mercy on me!―bill? Huh?
Clearly, the interjections add substantial meaning to the
sentence. And that is the end of this, uh . . . explanation.
Pronouns (revisited)
All editors and writers should be pronouns. Although
there are many who are proverbs and antinouns, nouns are the substance of the
language, and thus pronoun editors are also procreation, and renowns editors
are recreations. Do not bother to reread the sentence that precedes; frankly it
is hard to write anything meaningful about pronouns.
And if you wonder why editors are paid so little, ask
yourself, “What is the worth of a person who spends nights and weekends reading
about pronouns, let alone sitting up at midnight on Lunar New Year day writing
about them. That is what the editors at Ralph’s have come up.
Subjective and Objective Pronouns
Subjective pronouns tend to shout out at people: “Me, me,
me!” (or rather "I, I, I"). It is all very one-sided. Objective
pronouns, on the other hand, lend a more fair-minded flavor to a sentence. They
say, “Me, or possibly him, which could, of course, be her. Let’s discuss it
over lunch.”
With this in mind, the editor interested in politeness
and manners in speech will avoid the subjective pronoun, choosing instead long,
colorful descriptions, which will distract the reader from noticing that the
sentence refers to no subject whatsoever—a politically correct way of not
paying anything any special notice, lest something not spoken of cries out
“Politically not kosher!” which tends to break up the rhythm of a sentence. (Ralph's predicts that someday the word nonkosher will be in dictionaries.)
What's It All For?
Picture a room full of admiring eyes when one says, “Oh,
yeah, that’s the passive voice, future perfect tense, where the passive
voice is expressed with the past participle of the main verb preceded by a form
of the verb to be showing tense, which in this case is perfect and thus been,
to which is added the auxiliary verb have to create the pluperfect, along with will to express future meaning. Boy, it sure is a shame you can’t have the future
perfect continuous tense in the passive voice.”
These words don’t have to make any sense. The purpose is
indirect: They will make speaker look and sound impressive.
Editors can further pad the impression
they make by loading their desks with large volumes bearing such names as An
Examination of the Principles of English Grammar and Twenty Thousand Rules of
English Syntax. (Throw in a copy of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and
the Sickness unto Death for good measure.)
These volumes need not actually be read, but at any one
time, at least three should be opened and arranged sloppily about the desk’s
flat surfaces to make others think they are in use. (These open books
must, of course, be rotated frequently, and the constant arranging can be
as effective in impressing others as actually reading them is.)
Certainly the majority of editors can get by
without knowing much more about the English language than its rough origins (it was
created by the Angles in Anglo County, New Jersey, and the Saxons, a bebop band
once lead by Sonny Stitt). But should the editor wish to get
paid as much as those who actually bother to write and try to make themselves
understood, it is necessary to look, and speak, like a person who actually
attended (and stayed awake through) high school English class and Composition
101 in university. (Never mind that the rules actually followed by those classes in no way reflects real-world usage, at least outside of high schools and universities.)
With this in mind, Ralph’s Manual of Style has offered the preceding glossary of terms, along with simple but to-the-point explanations,
to help editors sound as if they had studied something other than
the habits of the opposite sex while in college (and stayed awake though it,
even if they didn't stay awake while studying the habits of the opposite sex).
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