Mother English and her abused children

Time for a break from Washington politics.  Here is a (hopefully) humorous look at language for those who LOVE language:

                    My gut told me the dame was trouble the minute her silhouette darkened the glass door to my office.  “I’m looking for a Private Investigator named Louie the Lip,” she pouted sticking her way too ruby red lips out with each syllable.

                “Who wants to know, Shweethart?” I asked so cool you could hear the saxophone in the background.

                “I’m Mrs. English.  However, I’m also known as ‘Mother English.’”

                “How may I assist you?” Something about her made me feel like I was back in Sunday School.  I hated Sunday School, but I liked this dame.  She had class.  Real Class. 

                “They’re killing and torturing my babies!” She cried out, her cool veneer was like a rabbit in a magician’s hat. They’ve kidnapped my baby, “Fewer” and they’re making her fraternal twin “Less” do all of her work.  I’m sure you know “Less” isn’t equipped to do “Fewer’s” work properly.    

“When was the last time anyone heard from “Fewer?”

                “Just before this television network decided it had- I can’t bear to say this- it’s so hard on my ears …” She scribbled something-with perfect penmanship I might add- on a piece of paper and handed it to me.  “More drama, less commercials,” the note said.

                I was beginning to feel her pain.

                “That’s not the end of it.  The Mercedes Benz people have a commercial featuring a car with l-e-s-s doors!”  This time she spelled the offending word.  “Why oh why can’t they allow ‘Fewer’ to do her work with items that can be counted, and let ‘Less’ work with things like water that cannot.  Is that too much to ask?”

                 I screamed as the words “less commercials” assaulted my brain.  Has this happened before?”

                “Yes’” she dabbed a tear from her eye.  They did the exact same thing to my babies, “Who,” and “Whom.”  “You should see “Who” struggling to be correct when he’s misused as in,” … She drew a deep breath as if gathering up her courage  … “Who does this belong to?” she blurted the words, her face a contortion of pain.  “As you can see, “she gathered the strength to go on, “Not only have they locked my baby “Whom” away, but they done something horrible to my other babies, my prepositions.

                “They’ve … they’ve …   dangled them!” So help me, I saw fire shoot out of her eyes.  “They’re using them to end their sentences.  I don’t know how much more my babies can endure.  My prepositions are allergic to periods!”   She was on the edge of hysteria, and there wasn’t a single thought I could provide as solace.   I wanted to offer her water, but I knew if she stopped, she might never find the courage to continue. 

                “For whom are we looking?”  I thought I’d give her a thrill and let her hear her baby’s name used properly. 

                “I can’t prove anything, but it may have started with the program ‘Star Trek.’  My baby, Infinitive, was so sweet and whole, until they came along and split her with their, ‘to boldly go.’ Why couldn’t they have just said ‘to go boldly,’ and left my poor little Infinitive alone?  The next thing I knew, everyone was pronouncing “plethora,” pluh THOR uh.   “Irregardless” started gaining acceptance. People began confusing “I” and “me”, saying things like “Join Helen and I” and using “myself” as the only personal pronoun in a sentence.   

                “Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not the in flexible prude that some people think I am. I’ve rather enjoyed some of the inventive alterations that have been made for informal conversation.  One fine example would be the fact that since one has to acquire one’s hat before leaving, the idea of leaving and acquiring what one must in order to do so is encapsulated in the term, ‘hat up,’ is, I think quite inventive.  It’s just that people must understand that there is a time and place for everything.

                “There are times when I can be like this,” amazingly she turned on bedroom eyes, hiked her dress to show legs that would turn milk into butter and plunged her neckline to reveal that kind of cleavage that starts wars.  “There are other times, however, when I’m most appropriately dressed like this.”   Somehow, she turned the neckline up to the top of her throat, and her dress hem down to her ankles.  She still looked good.  Just different for different occasions.  Versatile.

                “I’d love to help, but you have to give people a reason to care.”

                Language is clothing for our thoughts.  A neatly dressed young man sends a completely different message than one who wears his trousers below his derriere.   The same holds for language.   It provides intellectual structure.   At the rate the U.S. is declining intellectually, we won’t be able to make a pair of shoes in another decade!  Sloppy speech produces sloppy thinking, as much as it results from it.  

                “I’ll do what I can, to get the word out, but I can’t promise anything.  But I would like to ask you something.”

                “Yes?”

                “What’s your first name?

                “Proper.  And now I have a final question for you.  Why do they call you, ‘Louie the Lip?’”

“They ushed to call me, ‘Louie the Lishp,” until I learned not to talk like thish.