The magic of grenadine...

For most people, grenadine syrup translates into Tequila Sunrises and suchlike. But I was a grenadine-sipper for a long time before alcohol crossed my tongue, and the other day, I brought home a bottle of Rose's Grenadine to see if the lightning of memory that struck Proust when he ate his tea-soaked Madeleine cake might strike twice with me and grenadine.

In its "native" state, grenadine is an intensely red, sweet syrup made from pomegranates. When I was a child visiting my grandmother, she would often prepare refreshing drinks for me made of just grenadine syrup in cold water. It was an era before Coca-Cola and its ilk became ubiquitous, and anyway, neither my parents nor my grandmother believed in serving copious quantities of sugared drinks to me. About the only time I could drink Coke was when my parents would drag me along to various parties they had been invited to, on the rare occasions when I could not be left with my grandmother.

I learned about Social Security benefits early, by helping my grandmother balance her checkbook. Since I knew how much her apartment rent was, and about how large her electric, gas, and phone bills were, I had to wonder how she made ends meet, since the check she got from the government at the beginning of the month fell far short of the required sum (and we're not even starting to talk about food and incidentals, which included treats for her only grandson). One of the consequences of growing up partially in her orbit was a sensitivity to leaving lights on, or the water running, or talking too long on the phone.

Another consequence was her trying to dole out the grenadine in minuscule portions that were enough to lend taste and color to a drink of water, but not so large as to deplete the bottle too soon. There is apparently a technique to it, as I keep oscillating between too much grenadine in my water, and too little. I haven't the patience to try to drip, drip, drip my way to the Golden Proportion.

And the lightning does not strike, at least not in the way I think it struck old Marcel (either that, or the man was one bald-faced liar). I do recall my grandmother a bit more clearly now, though to be frank, I think it's been... hell, I don't know how long since I've directed my thoughts in her direction. I think maybe it's been a couple of years, on the occasion of my mother discussing her Final Plans, which for some reason do not include being laid to rest in the same New Jersey cemetary as her parents.

And the more I think of her, the more my eyes fill with tears... yeah, the grenadine is having an effect... oh, what kind of mechanism have I unleashed? I cannot type...

* * *I cannot, I will not allow my thoughts to turn to sadness, for there are too many fond memories burbling in my mind. The tears? Sadness for a person lost, or perhaps, as was somewhat differently the case with Marcel, for a time.

Perhaps my most clear memory of my grandmother was of something that occurred in my freshman year in college. Some friends of mine were planning to drive down to Florida for intersession (Ft. Lauderdale, wouldn't you know?), and I so much wanted to go with them. The problem lay with my parents, who (as one might have gathered from the aforementioned) were very protective of me, and who refused to give me permission to go on the trip.

I remember going to commisserate with my grandmother, fully expecting her to take my mother's side, since in some respects the level of her protectiveness made my mother's look tame by comparison. But I had to talk to someone, and she was all the audience I had at that moment.

After hearing what I had to say, she surprised the heck out of me by saying, "You're a young man, now, Alex. If you think it's the right thing to do, you ought to go."

"But they won't let me!" I said.

"You have to make up your own mind about going," came her counter.

Now, you'd probably never suspect it, but at one time, I was a very properly brought up lad who always said "please" and "thank you" and always asked permission. In those five minutes, an entirely new vista opened up for me, in the form of a wholly new alternative.

I went back to my parents and announced that, despite their wishes, I was going anyway. They were shocked. I went anyway. I had a great time.

I relearned the lesson later, in the Marines, when one fine day our D.I. hammered home a point by asking, "What can they do? Cut off your hair and send you to boot camp?"

I feel better now.

Cheers...

On being the Grammar Police...

One of the occupational hazards of acquiring facility with language is the temptation to feel superior to the 95% of people out there who aren't as gifted, linguistically, as one imagines oneself to be. I had a brief fling at being a full-fledged member of the Grammar Police back in my days working at Plenum, and was fortunate to have moved on to a more mellow view of the world.

There is an interesting community here on LJ called grammar_mavens. I find it to be an interesting source of useful tidbits from time to time, but increasingly, I am finding that I am developing an allergy to people who have pet language usage peeves. An interesting (for me) discussion has "erupted" recently, which I am promoting to an entry.

The background is this: In a couple of recent posts, members posting in grammar_mavens have described their intolerance of the phrase "I could care less," calling attention to the logical fallacy in the words (writes idadebeautreux: "I want to answer to them, 'So why don't you?' If you COULD care less, then you care SOME. You mean you couldn't care less!")

In a comment to a very similar post by amanda3, I responded with:

Please go have your sarcasm meter serviced, as it seems to be seriously on the fritz.

Your analysis seems to stop at the logical fallacy of stating one "could care less" when in fact, one could not do so. Had your sarcasm meter been fully operational, it would have kicked in, hinting that perhaps an implied "as if" might be associated with the phrase (i.e., "As if there is something in the world that I care less about").

Until you do get your sarcasm meter repaired, please be aware that you may experience the same reaction to people who say things such as, "I should be so lucky!" or "Tell me about it!" The same principle applies, so please do not allow any new pet peeves to develop. There are entirely too many of those critters running around.

In a separate comment, idadebeautreux dismissed the sarcasm argument, saying:

Except....most people don't use it sarcastically. Most people say it because they are too obtuse to think about what they are actually saying. I sympathize with you, amanda3 - in fact, I whined about this exact same pet peeve of mine a few entries ago. Anyone who considers people who use the phrase "I could care less" as speaking sarcastically are crediting those speakers with FAR more intelligence than is their due.

To which I replied:

Perhaps you are correct. However, I would prefer to credit someone with being smarter than they might actually be than to presume that anyone who uses the phrase "I could care less" is a mindless dolt incapable of sarcasm. In the former case, one loses little or nothing if the assumption is wrong; in the latter, all sorts of awkward results are possible (and probably inevitable).

In the final analysis, very few of us think very hard about what we write. We depend, instead, on mimicry of what we have read, or heard, or had drilled into us over the years.

For example, consider my use of the phrase "in the final analysis" to start the previous paragraph? What analysis am I talking about, by whom, and what's so "final" about it? I really couldn't tell you. To tell the truth, I didn't give it much thought when I wrote it because the usage works (albeit there are probably better ways to start that sentence). The same can be said for your use of "exact same" to describe your pet peeve: Despite the redundancy of the collocation, the usage works.

The same courtesy, I think, should be extended to those who use such expressions as "I could care less." Wouldn't you agree?

This reminds me of a joke I believe I heard in some translation context (perhaps on Lantra-L).

A linguistics professor is giving a lecture to a class of freshmen and is trying to make a point about how different languages go about expressing a negative.

"In some languages, a single negation is sufficient to denote a negative, as is the case in English," says the prof.

"In others, such as Russian, negatives are expressed by using two or more negations in a sentence," he continues.

"Obviously," he adds, almost as an afterthought, "it is impossible to express a negative using only positive expressions."

Upon which a voice from the back of the lecture hall cries out: "Yeah!... Right!"

* * *The day went quickly. I must admit I was sidetracked by Starswarm, by Jerry Pournelle, which I started reading last night and finished between pages of translation today. I have 12 pages or so of this set of standards to do, after which I must turn my attention to completing the newspaper article for client T in Chicago, both due out by Tuesday morning. Then there is the 0-page assignment from client M in Houston, due Wednesday, which I have not yet even looked at.

Time to go to sleep.

Cheers...