Them There Words What Be Correct
Mamacita says: It’s 2:30 in the morning, and I have to get up in a few hours and go to school, and be all enthusiastic about punctuation.
The thing is, I AM enthusiastic about punctuation. It’s important.
It tell us when to pause, and when to stop. It tells us when to end a sentence on a vocal inflection. It tells us when we are stating, and when we are questioning.
Think about math. What would it be without the symbols that tell us exactly what to do with the numbers and letters? That’s punctuation.
Think about music. All over the page, there are symbols that tell us what to do with the notes and the words. The pauses are just as important as the notes. So are the silences.
The pauses, and the silences, are as much a part of the beauty of the music as are the notes and the lyrics.
It’s the same with our spoken language. It is, after all, an ART. The Language Arts are as much of an art form as are the musical arts, or the studio arts. Done properly, language should flow from us, or from the page, as music flows.
With most of language, we instantly know when something is not said or written properly; the musical flow of the language is gone. The problem is, every geographical region has its own particular language idiosyncracies, and we get used to hearing them. Then, when we are taught that a way of expressing ourselves is incorrect, we are astounded. How could it be incorrect? Everyone we know says ‘it’ that way.
Maybe, maybe. . . . .
But the way we express ourselves opens doors, and slams doors shut, before us when we don’t even know it. We are judged daily on our ability to communicate our thoughts to others. And when we communicate poorly, we are judged and found wanting. Fair? Not always, but think: don’t we all put people on ‘levels’ according to their language? Good grammar connotes intelligence, like it or not.
Doctors, lawyers, dentists. . . . . most professionals use fairly good grammar. We expect it of them. We don’t want our brain surgeon to sound like Jethro Bodine, do we? I think not. It would be hard to trust one of the Beverly Hillbillies to cut us open if he/she hadn’t even learned how to use the language properly.
Our language standards are not as high with some other jobs. I think this is a shame.
Language is such an awesome wonder. . . . think about it for a minute. It connects us to others, and all of education, and much of life, is about connections. It also enables us to share, as well as to conceal, our thoughts. Some days, I’m not sure which is more important.
I should probably go on to bed. I’m lecturing again. Sometimes, it just pours out of me when I don’t realize it. Now that I realize it, I should stop.
That’s hard, for me. I love our language dearly. I hope you can tell.
Picasso Passes
Mamacita says: This is my favorite Picasso*, and it hangs in the foyer of my home. I’ve loved it for many years; a copy hung in the men’s side of my college dorm, (I still love you, Willkie Co-op!) and it used to fascinate me. The print. The print fascinated me. It just happened to hang in the lounge of the men’s dorm. I loved seeing it there. The print. No, wait, I mean. . .oh heck. (Um, somebody told me it was there.) (It was the MEN’S dorm! Why would I sneak want to go in there?) (I mean, you had to know how to pick the lock of the side door!)
Ahem. Well, moving right along. . . . I love Don Quixote de la Mancha. I love his unfailing insistence that life IS beautiful, even when it is at its most un-beautiful. I love the way he tilted at windmills. I love the language, the grammar, the turn-of-phrase. I love the use of the word “tilted.” I love “The Impossible Dream,” although when Jim Nabors sings it, I can’t look.
I love how he, like Pippa**, passes, and the mere fact of his passing changes the lives of almost everyone who encounters him merely by his ontological presence. He passes through, and everyone he touches is better. He doesn’t change people on purpose; he merely is what he is, and suddenly – or gradually – others become what they should be instead of what they actually were.
He speaks; he acts; those who listen are improved; the world is better for it.
I think this is what good teachers do.
*It’s not the ORIGINAL, for heaven’s sake! It’s just a framed poster, but I love it.
**Bonus points if you know who Pippa was.
Dear Parents: Don't Sweat the Trifles
Mamacita says: I had a lot of expectations and I made a lot of plans. Then I had kids.
There’s nothing like having children to knock most of our lofty expectations and plans into a cocked hat. Other people’s children are one thing; who among us has not watched disdainfully as someone’s child melted down in public or ran wild in a grocery store or openly defied a red-faced, humiliated parent in front of “people.”
Our own kids are quite another thing. “MY kids will never behave like that!” said we all to ourselves whilst still there and to each other when we got home again. “Bad parenting! We won’t have problems like that when WE have kids.” Such statements are, naturally, curses that work well, only in reverse.
I now live such things entirely in retrospect, which, bless it, removes most of the traumatic memories and fills our heads with the good stuff. Looking back, it’s the good memories that make me cry real tears into the photo albums of tiny little girls in fluffy dresses and hairbows, and smiling little boys in overalls and miniature red baseball caps.
The picture of my three-year-old son in a little brown suit complete with vest and tie makes me smile now, because when I focus on his bare feet, toes curling, the memory of how he had hidden his shoes “because I don’t LIKE them” right before our studio appointment has had all the “upset” removed and replaced with laughter.
The picture of my five-year-old daughter with her hair chopped off from the middle of her head to her forehead makes me smile now, too; I remember that little voice telling me with great pride that “I cut my own bangs myself so I’ll be extra pretty for kindergarten” and instead of blushing red when I look at her yearbook I now laugh out loud with delight at that perky scalped little girl beaming with pride.
Dear Parents: Don’t waste your energy getting upset over trifles. A few years down the road and you’ll be laughing your asses heads off over the innocent silliness of your infinitely precious little people.
To be perfectly honest with y’all, I lose my shoes all the time, because I only wear them when I absolutely have to. I never hid my shoes, but only because it never occurred to me. My little son’s picture with his tiny bare feet and curled toes is far more true to form than a fully dressed and posed studio portrait would have been.
As for hair, my skills in hairdressing were and still are so non-existent that even a semi-scalping didn’t make my princess look all that different from what she would have looked like with a Mommy-made hairdo. I did well to manage a curly ponytail cascading down her back. Two ponytails? The part down the back of her head was always more crooked than a dog’s hind leg. The harder I tried, the worse it looked.
I know there were many traumatic things when my children were small, but nothing comes to mind right now. I just remember those little people nestling and snuggling all over me, and trusting me to keep them alive, fed, clean, and happy. I did the best I could.
They’re still alive; they seem pretty healthy; they’re usually clean, and I hope and pray that they’re happy. They’re also still speaking to me, and I count that as a good sign.
Now, where did I put my shoes?
