Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Grammatical Animadversion

Perfidy Attacks

Those who know me well know that I’m fairly flexible on matters of language. Go ahead, say “ain’t” or write a double negative. I don’t care all that much unless the context calls for precision. Coin a word! I do it all the time! (I’m personally very proud of “libervasion,” as in “Five years in, the libervasion of Iraq has yet to draw to a favorable close for the USA.")

But what really burns my bacon is people who consistently fail to realize that two homophones are different. Case in point: Marshal, and Marshall. One denotes a person of high or ultimate rank in an organization, like Field Marshal or Fire Marshal. The other is a proper given name, like Marshall Mathers or Marshall Fauk. When everyone from high-school dropouts to tenured faculty, plus the guys who enter the scrolling headlines on major news networks, consistently write “Fire Marshal” as “Fire Marshall” I go a little nuts inside and wonder which Marshall it is who has fucked up so badly that his ass needs to be fired on the afternoon news.

That is all.

[Wik] (Now, if was “Fire Alberto” or “Fire The Stoner Who Took Two Hours To Deliver One Freaking Mushroom Pizza Light On The Mozzarella To My House And Couldn’t Even Put Together A Better Response Than To Cut His Reddened Eyes Away From Me And Mutter “Sorry If It’s Late” ("Sorry If It’s Late?” You Disingenuous Tool? We Both Know You Were Somewhere Doing Bong Hits, That’s Fine, Just Don’t Pretend You Don’t Know What Goddamn Time It Is When A Stone Cold Pizza Arrives At My House In A Cloud Of Resinous Smoke)” then I’d understand. But Fire Marshall? That poor bastard was just doing his job.)


Posted by Johno on 05/09/07 at 10:25 AM
Perfidy Attacks • Permalink