“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.

The Educator-Writer-Procrastinator Gives an Opinion

There’s a monologue, mostly in my mind since I’ve not put it to page yet, about this man who’s still young but held, gripped, by this fear that he’s losing language, losing words, and throughout the entire monologue he struggles with confessing this because he keeps forgetting what to say to express how he’s feeling. It’s a tragic little piece of prose; at least, in my mind.

I keep procrastinating when it comes to writing it down. I procrastinate a lot, and I don’t know why; it’s obviously an illness as yet to be fully defined the APA. I like to give my “laziness,” as some call it, certain visual hinges, un-oiled of course since they won’t open and close, for personal clarification purposes; these visual hinges, so to speak, are what prevent me from writing. And when it comes to playwriting, I call these hinges: knots. I’ve got the character, I know what he’s saying, but the sentences are knotted. I can get a few words out and then, there’s a knot, and it won’t untie. Remember Dexters, if you wore them to school on a wet day, how the leather laces weren’t coming loose, no matter what you did? Now, try untying them with just your mind. (Let’s all take a moment and envy Uri Geller).

Just think about it for a minute.

But, I also get hung up on the “what” and the “how.” Because I believe I am that guy in that monologue. I keep forgetting what to say, and so I can’t express how I’m feeling. I’ll be honest, when it comes to dealing with certain pain, or heartache, or the concept of significant loss, it’s a safe place to run to…but not to stay. I don’t want to be this man; I mean I’ve prided myself on being some sort of harbinger of language, twisting words, making up new words, re-defining old ones, and now they seem to be returning with a vengeance, in their original forms, to scold me for ever thinking I could blaze a new trail with words. Probably, I was just too bored with the old ones, I say. They don’t listen; they disappear. (Much like my childhood).

However, the old ones, the old ways of the word, I know a good bit about, not the least of which because I teach composition. And the old ones seem to be enough trouble for today’s students.

Several years ago, I had a job as a research evaluator, at first through a graduate assistantship, and then, for awhile, post-graduate work, as an independent employee. I worked on a couple of projects whose main focus was, at its basic level, reading comprehension/fluency. It was a fascinating study of which to be a part, even a small part. I was given hands-on experience with data collection and measurement design, I loved it. I really did. But, I didn’t fully understand it until I was back in the classroom, observing it for “real” and not for “research.” When I was collecting data, I was unconcerned with “why” they weren’t “getting it.” As the teacher, the tables have turned, and now I’m faced with the frightening prospect of being the responsible party, the reason they do or don’t get it.

But here’s the really upsetting point: I teach college, and if they don’t “have it” by the time they reach me, then we’ve got a real problem – they’ve never had it at all, or they never got it, in the first place. You know what’s frustrating: to be able to see so clearly the problem, but have no clear idea what the solution is.

I’m a tail-end member of Generation X. We didn’t care, we fought the system (though we weren’t sure what the system was), we were brazen and loud-mouthed, and angry and self-centered. I doubt any one of us could tell you why. I have a feeling it was really just genuine parental rebellion that accidentally caught on nationwide and assumed a mission.

But, the point is, as hard as I’ve fought to educate myself against that generation, I still sense portions of me that have regressed. I behave older than my age, but my sense of humor is less than droll; it’s often quite base, to be honest. I hate that about myself, sometimes. I feel as if I’ve fallen into a growth gap of 7-8 years younger than my current age, which I’m still struggling with because I’m getting too old not to have full-time employment, or full-time meaningful employment with insurance and benefits. My generation is struggling to crawl out of this gap, a trench we built ourselves, and the greater fear is we’re heading to that middle-man region, in an economy we may be partly responsible for creating, and our options are limited, becoming more so with each passing hour. We’re old enough now to see that it’s a big problem, but we didn’t listen enough to our parents to know how to fix it. We are _________. (We’re still trying to figure that out).

And now, I’m standing in front of students, everyday, who, mostly, have less than desirable goals than we did, back then. That scares the hell out of me. They’re the immediate future, and most of them don’t even understand what a recession is, or how to pronounce it. Or what a linking verb is. Or even what caring really means. If I can’t get you to name the eight parts of speech, how on this earth can I teach you how to care?

I know, I know, I don’t teach anything but composition, etc., but somehow, I believe it all has to do with the ability to read. I can’t prove that, but I see it in my classroom: the lack of interest, the rapidity of the eye moving across the page (too fast, too quickly to ascertain letter-structures), the tepid attempt at responding to literature questions, the inability to realize that literary themes are reflective of life-themes. I wish I could just be collecting data, because I have no idea how to start fixing problems that have been occurring long before they got to my classroom. I’m not trying to blame others; I’m just pointing out that these are deep roots. NCLB has required higher quality teachers which means going back to school, paying more money which seems impossible to get, at times, and then back into the classrooms – but it hasn’t even begun to fix the problem as far as I can see.

Because the problem isn’t only in the teacher; its seed lies with the student, buried beneath layers of emotional, psychological, social, economic, religious, mental, developmental, ad infinitum, problems. They’re already being bombarded with the chafing substance of living, what irony. By the time they’re born, it’s almost too late then to be taught. That’s how it feels, sometimes, even with the smart students.

I think it’s wiser, perhaps, to stop assuming what knowledge should be generalized and teach its student to his/her capacity – yes, even with the headaches that this suggests. Inside, I still believe, that each student is smart, but until we talk to them about what smart means to them, it seems unfair to make every student fit a standard. We already know they can’t, not all of them. If that were the case, we’d have to stay in school forever, wouldn’t we? Have to have someone grade us all along the way: A+ for taking out the garbage so the house doesn’t smell; B- for the overgrown lawn; C for forgetting to get the oil changed, and let’s not even start with a grade scale after marriage…or divorce.

These seem silly things to accomplish, but look deeper…they have a talent all on their own that many of us don’t—

After all, I’m a procrastinator, remember?