This is a bit old, but the Hound of Ulster brought my attention to one of the saddest pieces of ignorance I have seen in a long time. Here's the LINK.
The seeds of this debacle were sown back in the Moose-man's heyday, when he used to claim that "Ray" was short for his native-American name, "Rainbow Moose"--not that he was really native-American. It was an identity he adopted to accomplish certain goals. I think I may have mentioned before the hippy cult he led at the time.
Anyway, the results of Ray's experiments were less than happiness and flowers, although few caught up in the 60's Moose Movement would admit that today.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Pounding it home with the grammar hammer
I cannot guarantee that today’s subject really has to do with Ray Moose. It’s not his style, really. But this particular bit of grammatical ignorance has bugged me more and more as time goes by, not least because it has taken absolutely everyone in. To my knowledge, I am the only person on the planet who understands this issue.
Take this sentence: “Hopefully we’ll see you at Christmas.” According to a consensus of all school marms and grammatical gurus, that sentence is incorrect. Because “hopefully” is an adverb, it should modify and adjective or a verb; there’s no adjective here, so it has to modify the verb; but the sentence does not really mean that we will see you at Christmas in a hopeful manner. Quod absurdum est. Therefore the sentence is ungrammatical.
That, at least, is what everyone says but me. Here is the truth of the matter: in that example, “hopefully” modifies neither adjective nor verb but the very saying of the sentence. It means that “we’ll see you at Christmas” is said in a hopeful manner.
My, you should have heard the howls of laughter that greeted me the first time I propounded this simple insight. A den of grammatical jackals, it was!
There can be no question that English speakers could use a word that way if we wanted it to. The issue is whether we have a convention of using adverbs that way. Were there not some strange blockage in the brain caused by fluoride in the water that prevents people from applying logic to grammar, I think the example of “hopefully” above would prove the case all by itself: there is this convention because that is the obvious meaning of the sentence. Given the present situation (and thank goodness my house is on a well), the only remedy is to multiply such examples until doubt becomes not simply unreasonable but unpardonable.
Here goes example number one: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Raise your hand if you think the sentence means, “I don’t give a damn in a frank manner.” Anyone? Any takers? No?
OK, then consider the possibility that the sentence means that “I don’t give a damn” is spoken in a frank manner. And remember that this construction is exactly parallel to the example of “hopefully” given above.
Take this sentence: “Hopefully we’ll see you at Christmas.” According to a consensus of all school marms and grammatical gurus, that sentence is incorrect. Because “hopefully” is an adverb, it should modify and adjective or a verb; there’s no adjective here, so it has to modify the verb; but the sentence does not really mean that we will see you at Christmas in a hopeful manner. Quod absurdum est. Therefore the sentence is ungrammatical.
That, at least, is what everyone says but me. Here is the truth of the matter: in that example, “hopefully” modifies neither adjective nor verb but the very saying of the sentence. It means that “we’ll see you at Christmas” is said in a hopeful manner.
My, you should have heard the howls of laughter that greeted me the first time I propounded this simple insight. A den of grammatical jackals, it was!
There can be no question that English speakers could use a word that way if we wanted it to. The issue is whether we have a convention of using adverbs that way. Were there not some strange blockage in the brain caused by fluoride in the water that prevents people from applying logic to grammar, I think the example of “hopefully” above would prove the case all by itself: there is this convention because that is the obvious meaning of the sentence. Given the present situation (and thank goodness my house is on a well), the only remedy is to multiply such examples until doubt becomes not simply unreasonable but unpardonable.
Here goes example number one: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Raise your hand if you think the sentence means, “I don’t give a damn in a frank manner.” Anyone? Any takers? No?
OK, then consider the possibility that the sentence means that “I don’t give a damn” is spoken in a frank manner. And remember that this construction is exactly parallel to the example of “hopefully” given above.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
The Kirby Vacuum guy
A Moose operative appeared at my door this week, disguised as a Kirby Vacuum Cleaner salesman. Maybe it was a random visit, but maybe my blog has begun to touch a nerve. Anyway, I had never seen one of the “super-vacs” at work before, so my curiosity led me unwittingly to admit the agent into my house.
What followed was outRaygous. He buzzed his machine over my couch cushions and showed me the resulting crud on a special display filter in the Kirby vac. “Would you sit on this?”, he asked, brandishing the filthy filter. No, of course not, I said. He pointed dramatically to the couch: “Sitting on that is the same thing!”
I pointed out to him that if it were really the same thing, then all that crud would come off onto my pants whenever I sat down or onto the floor whenever I shifted the cushions, and then the crud wouldn’t have been there for his machine to pick up.
He was undeterred. Whipping out yet another of the 141 attachments that come with the Kirby, he vacuumed off my ceiling fan and showed me the crud on his special display filter. “Do you ever run that fan?”, he asked. Yes, of course I do, I said. He waved a finger ominously in the air: “Every time you turn the fan on, all that dust goes into the air and into your lungs!”
Of course, if all that dust went into the air every time I turn the fan on, then how would all that dust be there for his vacuum to pick up? But you can’t expect too much from one of Ray Moose’s men.
The one “demonstration” that really floored me was what he did on the carpets. He ran the Kirby vacuum cleaner over our recently-vacuumed floor for just two seconds and showed me a quarter-inch pile of crud on his display filter; he repeated this several times on different parts of the carpet. I’ve read about this kind of thing, but had never seen it done: the Kirby vacuum guy will come to your house, run your expensive vacuum over the floor, and then show you how the Kirby can still pull up crud that your machine missed. In fact, a vacuum salesman for some other brand did precisely that at my sister-in-law’s house and left her very upset about how badly she was cleaning her carpets.
Very convincing. What a super-vac! Almost he persuaded me to part with a great deal of money to buy the wondrous machine….
But after he left, I got curious. He had left a few of his display filters sitting around, so I jammed one into my own cheapie vacuum cleaner and ran it for a couple of seconds over the carpet that he had shampooed with his Kirby. I looked at the filter and—by golly, a quarter-inch pile of crud! I tried it again on the exact same place on the carpet and—same results!
In fact, you can take any vacuum cleaner and perform the same “demonstration”. Let your friend vacuum her floor with her machine, then take yours and show her that your machine can pick up all this crud that hers left behind! Just don’t tell her that hers can also pick up crud that yours leaves behind. As long as she doesn’t think to try the experiment in reverse, you might can sell her your fifty-dollar cheapie-vac for the “bargain” price of $500.
You see, carpets are just so gross that they always have piles of crud under them. Even if your friend has a wonder-vac, it will leave piles of crud in the carpet because that’s the way carpets are. The real explanation of the Kirby demonstration is not that Kirbys are so great, but that carpets are so bad.
I wonder if the Kirby man himself knows that his display is bogus.
Probably not. After all, he’s a disciple of Ray Moose. I almost hope he comes back….
What followed was outRaygous. He buzzed his machine over my couch cushions and showed me the resulting crud on a special display filter in the Kirby vac. “Would you sit on this?”, he asked, brandishing the filthy filter. No, of course not, I said. He pointed dramatically to the couch: “Sitting on that is the same thing!”
I pointed out to him that if it were really the same thing, then all that crud would come off onto my pants whenever I sat down or onto the floor whenever I shifted the cushions, and then the crud wouldn’t have been there for his machine to pick up.
He was undeterred. Whipping out yet another of the 141 attachments that come with the Kirby, he vacuumed off my ceiling fan and showed me the crud on his special display filter. “Do you ever run that fan?”, he asked. Yes, of course I do, I said. He waved a finger ominously in the air: “Every time you turn the fan on, all that dust goes into the air and into your lungs!”
Of course, if all that dust went into the air every time I turn the fan on, then how would all that dust be there for his vacuum to pick up? But you can’t expect too much from one of Ray Moose’s men.
The one “demonstration” that really floored me was what he did on the carpets. He ran the Kirby vacuum cleaner over our recently-vacuumed floor for just two seconds and showed me a quarter-inch pile of crud on his display filter; he repeated this several times on different parts of the carpet. I’ve read about this kind of thing, but had never seen it done: the Kirby vacuum guy will come to your house, run your expensive vacuum over the floor, and then show you how the Kirby can still pull up crud that your machine missed. In fact, a vacuum salesman for some other brand did precisely that at my sister-in-law’s house and left her very upset about how badly she was cleaning her carpets.
Very convincing. What a super-vac! Almost he persuaded me to part with a great deal of money to buy the wondrous machine….
But after he left, I got curious. He had left a few of his display filters sitting around, so I jammed one into my own cheapie vacuum cleaner and ran it for a couple of seconds over the carpet that he had shampooed with his Kirby. I looked at the filter and—by golly, a quarter-inch pile of crud! I tried it again on the exact same place on the carpet and—same results!
In fact, you can take any vacuum cleaner and perform the same “demonstration”. Let your friend vacuum her floor with her machine, then take yours and show her that your machine can pick up all this crud that hers left behind! Just don’t tell her that hers can also pick up crud that yours leaves behind. As long as she doesn’t think to try the experiment in reverse, you might can sell her your fifty-dollar cheapie-vac for the “bargain” price of $500.
You see, carpets are just so gross that they always have piles of crud under them. Even if your friend has a wonder-vac, it will leave piles of crud in the carpet because that’s the way carpets are. The real explanation of the Kirby demonstration is not that Kirbys are so great, but that carpets are so bad.
I wonder if the Kirby man himself knows that his display is bogus.
Probably not. After all, he’s a disciple of Ray Moose. I almost hope he comes back….
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