“I’m not so sure that shrimps is correct.”

…if you know me – and soon enough you will, I hope – you know that I’m a bit obsessed with language and pronunciation, etcetera. For instance, I flat-out refuse to drag the word comparative over four separate vowels and/or syllables depending on which part of the country you live in. 

Instead, I just say it shortly and sweetly, like this, comparative: emphasis on the first syllable, omitting the middle “a,” and running the rest of it together under the “r” sound). It sounds more intelligent, I think. I am quite a strong advocate for doing all I can to make our atonal, uninteresting, Germanic-based language, at the least, a little more British sounding, if possible. (I know British is also Germanic-based, but it doesn’t sound like it. I get this linguistic need, honestly; my Aunt Vera, may she rest in peace for a little while, was from the Mother Land; she like to rrrrrun syllables into a high lilt mish-mash, and use everyone’s entire name in conversation no matter the topic at hand, even if there was no topic at hand, and play Rook).  It wasn’t what she said so much as how she sounded: better than I did.

Also, I admit, I enjoy making up my own words, such as infidelitous, and kiosked…I think you get the picture…

Why learn words? They're only worth 11 points.

(For argument’s sake, I will allow that Amanda, a.k.a. Commander the Walking Dictionary, has often taken great pleasure in reminding me that some words have alternate pronunciations and synonyms that we mostly overlook – that I’m certainly not creating on my own – or, I guess it’s more accurate to say that we’ve not been taught the full English language, so we don’t realize how many ways one word can be said, or pronounced.  I’m considering writing my Congressman about this.  Not that he’ll change anything, but at least I’ll get to use the words I’ve been not taught; I’ll even burn a CD for him of me pronouncing all the variations of each word in the letter). 

That’ll get me on the 6:00 news, I bet. And probably on the FBI watch list.

Anyway, I try very hard to be polite and say the right thing.  That comes from my aggravatingly good upbringing. I know, I know, it’s what people who are trying to be nice to me call that painful part of my charm, I understand that, but yesterday on my way to what was supposed to be a simple little dinner, one of them, the nearly cute one, turned to me and began to comment on this delicious “dish” he’d had in Atlanta, the weekend before, in which he’d been served, “grilled shrimps with a creamy lemon-garlic-butter sauce.”

Oh, and yes, also “bread.” He’d had bread, with the rosemary baked right into it. (Too much of that is poisonous, I’m almost positive). 

No one else seemed to notice the slight slip of his tongue on this. But, I had.

Clearly and plainly he’d annexed the letter “s” to the tail end of the word shrimp.

I couldn’t help myself (I’d been battling an ant issue around the lip of my bathtub, which is a shrine to me, the bathtub, any bathtub, even your bathtub…the point is, I was already a little worn).

I said, “I’m sorry, did you say shrimps?”

“Yes,” he said. “And they were delicious.”

“Be that as it may.” I began, disappointed in myself as memories of my gauche Great Aunt Maudy clouded my mind; she always managed to work this phrase into any conversation, even at funerals. She also never shut up. If she’d been talking about things anyone cared even marginally about, Uncle Big Man, her 100% opposite and a man of a very few choice and select words, most of them curse-words, would inevitably have turned to me and said he could’ve eaten a can of alphabet soup and shit a better conversation, but nevertheless, when the twain shall meet, there I’ll be, running off at the mouth, just like she did, and a little bit of him, too; it’s genetic…

And that’s why I couldn’t let it go. I continued, “I’m not so sure that shrimps is correct.”

This is one shrimp. Singular. That's all I know.

In retrospect, it was a foolish thing to say. I mean, if beaten about the brow on it, does it really matter, I had to ask myself? But, then again, if it’s important enough to be beaten anywhere at all, I suppose I’d have to answer Yes, it does matter. Especially if beaten about the brow.  I mean, there’s always a chance, small as it is, that I’m wrong, but when I’m wrong, the bruise might as well show.

“Do you have a problem with my saying shrimps?” was the comeback.

And to be honest, I did. “Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because…well, it just, it just sounds…stupid.”

What ensued was perhaps the longest philosophical debate ever given to shrimp. And not about their ontological well being, or their spiritual place in the world of man, but rather, the entire debate was predicated on the simple rule of pronouncing their species in the plural, of which none of us could recall.

But, oh, how we continued after realizing that none of us could remember if there were any such grammatical rule about it. We argued then, in unison, for the misunderstood plurals of all things…fish versus fishes (and if that rule applied to a group of the same kind of fish, or groups of different fish, which of course, would then be fishes); we railed against the tired age-old debate of moose to moose but goose to geese, and how was it mouse to mice, house to houses, and then, of course, the Seussian misstep of one sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four sheep, and so forth and so on.

It didn’t rest simply on plural forms, either. I mean, who hasn’t been lost at understanding the suffix stumbling block of –ough? It’s cough, but it’s through; it’s bough…but then enough; and really, isn’t it…isn’t it?

As we pulled into the parking spot, we decided it’d be best to just part ways over shrimp(s).

He said he was fine with his plural and chose to keep it shrimps; I said I was not ok with it and chose to tell him that he sounded retarded and uneducated. And then, we began to discuss the abuse of words in colloquialistic manners like “retarded” and the resultant offenses such misused words would cause when used out of context…and furthermore, how impossible it was in this day and age to combat context; it was much too late for that battle to begin.  My students could barely write as it was, and now, with cellphones regressing texting back to the days of telegrams…it was enough to make you cry, bawl, blubber, sob, weep, lament, grieve… 

CRY: origins from Middle English crien, from Anglo-French crier, from Latin quiritare to make a public outcry

I threw that part in for you. It also made me feel better.

All in all, I have to say, though, if the truth be told, it was one of the most exciting dinners I’ve ever had. We’re doing it again, real soon.

Or would that be really soon?

Well, whatever, we are doing it again, and it’s going to be soon. It’s going to be a real dinner. A real dinner that is going to happen and soon. 

There, that works. Sheesh.