Out of My Mind

by Andy Rooney

  You can usually make out in any foreign country with English because invariably, someone you’re dealing with speaks it. I do not defend boorish Americans in foreign countries whose solution to not speaking the native language is to shout louder in English.

  The United States should have a policy making it clear to those who plan to emigrate to this country that, as part of the deal, we expect them to learn our language.

  ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE

  It has been said by someone other than me that no language that pronounces the word colonel “kernel” is perfect. In spite of some flaws, English is a great language. It isn’t easy, though. I write a lot of English and never stop running into problems.

  A recent newspaper story said, “The teachers asked the students to read the papers they had written.” It isn’t clear who wrote the papers—the students or the teachers.

  It’s easy to slip into redundancies. “Purchase price”? What other kind of price would it be? People speak of “the end result,” as if some results were not the end.

  How come someone who writes a play is a playwright and not a playwriter?

  We use a lot of ungrammatical short cuts, which seem OK to me. We say, “I’ll be home tomorrow.” No one bothers to say, “I’ll be at home tomorrow.”

  When I write a sentence with a quotation in it, I put the period or the question mark that ends it after the last quotation mark but editors often change this. They put the period or question mark inside the final quotation mark. My question is, “Why?”

  In Don Marquis’ delightful stories about archie and mehitabel, archie the cockroach typed everything lowercase, without any capital letters. He couldn’t use capitals because, as a small cockroach, he had to dive headfirst at the keys to make them hit the paper. He couldn’t simultaneously hit the key he wanted and the “caps” key, so everything archie typed, including the united states of america, looked like this.

  Archie had an excuse, but there’s no excuse for e-mail being spelled without a capital E. (For years I have objected to the policy of many newspapers not capitalizing the word “president” when it refers to the President of the United States. Maybe the policy was established for newspapers written by archie the cockroach.)

  Written English is at its best when it’s plain and simple. Henry David Thoreau said, “If one has anything to say, it drops from him simply and directly like a stone to the ground . . . he may stick in the points and the stops wherever he can get a chance.”

  I always liked that but Thoreau used “one” the first time, then a few words later in the sentence he drops “one” and goes to “him.” Once you start with “one,” you have to finish with it and I wouldn’t ever start with it. It must have sounded less pretentious in Thoreau’s time. Writing was more formal.

  It’s wrong, but I routinely use the word “like” as a conjunction in place of “as” both in writing and speaking: “I write like I speak,” not “I write as I speak.”

  There are I0,000 phrases that may not be good grammar but which are too useful to ignore, such as, “He wants out.”

  I don’t like to use “whom.” “Who” suits me just fine for any occasion. I seldom use the subjunctive, either. I write, “If I was home . . . ,” not, “If I were home.”

  There are English words that can be used to mean a dozen different things, even though the spelling never changes. The word pretty is an example. We all know what it means when someone says, “She’s pretty.” The meaning of that word becomes complex, though, when you say, “She’s pretty pretty.” It means she isn’t beautiful, just fairly pretty. And it would be hard to explain to anyone who spoke another language what we mean when we say, “He’s sitting pretty.” (I seldom start a sentence with an “and” like that.)

  It would be hard (difficult) to come to the United States from someplace like Korea without any knowledge of English and have to start learning it. How long would it be before you understood all the nuances of “pretty”?

  DOWN WITH THE SEMICOLON

  Writers try to make concessions to what interests readers but inevitably they end up writing about what interests them. I spend so much time writing that punctuation looms large in my life. However, I recognize that a lot of people couldn’t care less about it—or “could care less,” as the expression has become even though it doesn’t make sense.

  There are ten punctuation marks in that first paragraph of mine and they all serve a purpose. The period or dot used as an unequivocal stop to a flow of words is one of the great inventions of all time. It’s simple and there’s no doubt about what it means. It’s interesting that it has recently acquired a whole new use in computer language as “.com” When you speak it, you say, “dot com” not “period com.”

  I especially like dashes in a sentence, like the one in my first paragraph, although I don’t think they were even an acceptable punctuation mark when I started taking English classes in the fourth or fifth grade. A dash is somewhat similar to but different from three dots in a sentence . . . if you know what I mean.

  Commas are useful in making the meaning of a written sentence clearer to a reader but newspaper copy editors have turned against them and I don’t understand why. There are many fewer commas in newspaper stories than there were twenty years ago. (I’m not sure, of course, whether it’s the editors or the writers who are using fewer of them, but I often have to reread a sentence to understand it because of a missing comma.) I like using parentheses like that occasionally, too. It indicates the thought is sort of a side remark being made to the reader. If you use brackets, they convey a different meaning. Parentheses are rounded marks to set off a group of words. Brackets are a different shape, usually with right angles at top and bottom. I think of them as strong parentheses and hardly ever use them even though there are keys for them on every keyboard. No one writes as he speaks and no one speaks as he writes, but when you put words down on paper, you ought to be able to hear yourself saying them. If you cannot, the chances are that what you have written is stilted, stiff and too formal. You can’t write exactly as you speak, though, because it would be repetitive and rambling.

  The advantage the written word has over the spoken word is that you can think a moment about what you want to say and how you want to say it instead of blurting it out. When we speak like that, we usually recognize that we haven’t said what we meant accurately so we rephrase it and say it again. On paper, you have the opportunity to say it right the first time.

  There is one punctuation mark I don’t understand so I never use it. That is the semicolon. The colon is a practical divider of ideas and I often use one, but I never use a semicolon because I don’t know what it does. I don’t even know why it’s spelled all one word instead of being hyphenated as “semi-colon.” The semicolon is a period over a comma. If you use a period, a comma, a colon, question mark, quotation mark, hyphen, dash or bracket, you know what you’re doing, but what does a semicolon do? Is it sort of a colon? Is it used to separate ideas in a sentence that are more different than when you use a comma, but not so different as when you use a period? This bears no likeness to the use of a colon and I hereby call for a worldwide English language boycott of the semicolon!

  THE SOPRANOS, A BASE VOICE

  I’m not sure “amuses” is the right word—but it amuses me that a good newspaper, appealing to the same audience, would never use the words that are commonly spoken in some movies and television shows.

  The whole idea behind the word tolerance is good and we’re all occasionally disappointed with ourselves for not being tolerant, but a little intolerance is a good thing too.

  I am intolerant of the television hit The Sopranos. I fail to understand why so many people accept and enjoy a show that incessantly uses language so foul that I can’t use it here because no newspaper would print it. Do dirty words turn people on? I am revolted by them.

  I read a review in the New York Times describing The Sopranos as sophisticated and intellectual. The reviewer never
mentioned the word used most often in the show because the Times would not have printed it if she had. She did not ever refer to the language used, which so dominates the dialogue that it’s hard to follow the plot.

  I spent four years in the Army and I’m familiar with all the words, but I don’t use obscenities and the words had never been heard in our living room until I tuned in to “The Sopranos.” This is a well-acted and otherwise well-written show, but I must have been asleep during the intellectual part. I tune out of any television show that has a psychiatrist, and The Sopranos has a few.

  The use of foul language on the show is not limited to the lead character, mob boss Tony Soprano. (The creators of the show might argue that this language establishes his character.) In a recent installment, his teenage daughter used obscene language in an argument with her father and mother. Tony’s wife, Carmela, wears a jeweled cross around her neck but uses profanity.

  If I knew anyone in the Mafia, I’d ask if they really talk that way in their homes. I bet they do not.

  There have been good movies in which obscenity and profanity were used effectively. I don’t object to that. What I object to is the mindless profusion of both in some movies and television shows when such language does nothing for the plot or the characters.

  I asked several regular viewers of The Sopranos whether the show’s characters used profanity, obscenity and vulgarity, but most of them couldn’t give me an answer because they didn’t know the difference. Profanity is speech that is disrespectful of God or religion. Obscenity involves some sex act. Vulgarity is often associated with a body function.

  Most newspapers don’t print an obscenity even when it’s part of a statement from a public figure. For example, when President Bush and Vice President Cheney were on a dais together and thought their microphones were off, the President described a reporter with a vulgar epithet involving a body aperture. Newspapers reporting the story did not use the word.

  There have been a few times when newspapers found it necessary to violate their own policy. In 1974, when the texts of some of President Nixon’s White House conversations were made public, many papers did print the worst of the language because they felt it was vital to a full understanding of the story.

  Again in 1991, when the Supreme Court appointment of Clarence Thomas was at stake, newspapers printed some of the explicitly sexual language used in the harassment charge against him. Many newspapers also printed some of the explicit language in the text submitted to Congress recommending the impeachment of President Clinton. To avoid those words would have changed the meaning.

  Newspapers that printed the actual text of the Clinton report omitted the same language in their news stories about it.

  All this seems decent and responsible. I find The Sopranos indecent and irresponsible. Now, I suppose you can’t wait to see it.

  LAW AMONG THE SORRY LOTT

  It’s about time we stopped saying we’re sorry when we aren’t sorry at all. We have destroyed the meaning of a good word by using it a hundred times a day in all kinds of petty circumstances that don’t call for being sorry. Well-meaning parents teach their children to say, “I’m sorry,” before the kids know what being sorry means.

  The word “sorry” does not seem to be related to “sorrow.” Sorrow is a much more serious and sadder emotion than simply being sorry. The word “sorry” suggests regret but not remorse or grief as sorrow does.

  We have established degrees of regret when we speak of it. We begin with the simply uttered “Sorry” and then progress to “I’m sorry,” “I’m so sorry,” “I’m awfully sorry,” “I’m terribly sorry” and the ultimate, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.” None of these statements is uttered with any real sense of regret.

  Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston don’t have a lot in common but they did have one thing in common recently : They both spent a lot of time saying how sorry they were. Neither of them sounded like anything except they were sorry that the things they said and did became public. Their regret was not over what they said or did but over the attention they got.

  Trent Lott was not sorry he held racist opinions for most of his career. He was sorry he made a dumb statement that made it apparent he had racist opinions. He went all out apologizing and it didn’t work. Even though it would have been possible to vote against making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday without being a racist, Lott apologized for having voted against it, admitting, in effect, that he had been racist when he did.

  One of Lott’s Republican colleagues in the Senate was quoted as saying, “I’m sorry to say I think he has outlived his usefulness as a Republican leader.” That’s sorry on top of sorry and hardly sincere, either. Do you think that senator was really sorry to say that? He sounded pleased to say it.

  Cardinal Law didn’t seem anymore apologetic when he was shown kissing the Pope’s hand before uttering words of abject apology for having helped perpetuate the sexual abuse of young boys by old priests. I’m sure he was sorry he lost his job and he was sorry everyone found out how wrong he was but it seems likely that, in his own mind, he did nothing that calls for him to be sorry. He no doubt has prayed for forgiveness and thinks he’s been forgiven.

  Both these experienced and worldly men should know that apologizing for something wrong that you have done or said doesn’t work. An apology in the world these days means nothing. Everyone does it all the time. It almost never means that the person apologizing feels in anyway apologetic or regretful. There’s no evidence that prayer is any more effective in ridding a person of guilt than contrition, either.

  We have ruined the whole idea of apology with meaningless repetition of the word “sorry,” just as we have diluted “Thanks” by overuse. At least ten times a day we hear ourselves saying “Thanks” or “I’m sorry” when thankfulness or regret doesn’t enter into our feelings. If someone bumps into us on the street, we instinctively blurt out, “I’m sorry,” as if it was our fault. It is not an occasion that calls for an apology on the part of the person bumped into and it is just one more little thing that diminishes the significance of genuine contrition.

  I’m sorry about this essay. Really, really, terribly sorry.

  ENGLISH ISN’T EASY

  Like the basement, the attic or garage, our language needs to be cleaned out once in a while. There are some words and phrases in our language that we ought to retire. I’ve made a small collection of some we could do without:

  “Have a good one.” This is a trite substitute for people who realize that “Have a nice day” is tired but don’t know what else to say.

  “Parental discretion advised.” Does any parent advise their child not to watch when they see these three words on their television screen? What it’s really saying is, “Hey, Kids! You might want to catch this dirty show.”

  Use of the word “experience” as a verb in advertising is annoying. The ads read, “Experience the ride of your life,” or “Experience the taste of a great beer.”

  I have an unreasonably strong aversion to making verbs out of nouns like “parent.” Here’s a sentence from a magazine on my desk: “Parenting doesn’t come naturally to some men.” How about, “Being a father doesn’t come naturally to some men.”

  “We’re not getting the job done.” The favorite post-game cliché of the coach of the losing team.

  Use of the word “feel” for “think,” as in, “I feel you’re wrong about that.” I use “feel” that way very often myself and feel I shouldn’t. I use “very” very often, too.

  We could do without subjunctives. No one knows what they are anyway and they sound pretentious. The indicative is always better, simpler. “I wish I was younger” is preferable to “I wish I were younger.” I can take the subjunctive in a few places where the style fits the occasion, as in a meeting where the chairman uses the formal subjunctive: “I move the meeting be adjourned.”

  “In and of itself ” should go. What does it mean?r />
  “Your call is very important to us.” Then why the hell don’t you answer your phone?

  Using “world class” for “good.” This was a British expression used thirty years ago and we’ve taken it over. Americans use it to describe things that aren’t much better than average.

  A “bout” with cancer. People try to lesson the seriousness of the disease by using the word “bout” as though it was (not “were”) a temporary affliction.

  “Associate” for sales clerk. The loud speaker in the busy store says, “Attention! Will a sales associate report to the cashier!”

  Using “unbelievable” for unusual. I heard the phrase fifty times listening to sports events last weekend. Football players made “unbelievable” catches. Golfers made shots that were “unbelievable.” Sports announcers were all looking for some superlative to describe a good or unusual performance and they all lit on “unbelievable.”

  “Straight ahead” used by news announcers or anchormen meaning, “Coming next.”

  A mistake I hear too often is use of the adjective “Reverend” as a title. It is improper to address a clergyman named Paul Reynolds as “Rev. Reynolds.” He is either “the Rev. Paul Reynolds” or “the Rev. Mr. Reynolds.”

  It’s easy to get proud of yourself for knowing a little grammar. I’m not much of a grammarian, but I am always annoyed when I hear people misuse the word “comprise.” The whole comprises the parts. The whole is not “comprised of ” the parts.

  The favorite term used by immigrants who know very little English is, “No problem.” It seems to give them a sense of security with our language because it suggests they have mastered a bit of our jargon.