Hence why I literally mean pacifically

A couple of days ago I was going through some emails at work, replying to important stuff and kicking some less important stuff into the long grass. It’s a shared workspace and the computer is used by a number of colleagues. I noticed, after a couple of minutes, that it had been left on an 'auto-correct' setting and was changing some words as I typed. I’m not keen on that sort of thing; I don’t even use predictive text on my phone, because I don’t like the idea of a piece of software interpreting my intentions, guessing what I’m about to do next (I’m not paranoid, but everyone else thinks I am).  

Responding to one particular message, I had to use the phrase his specific requirements. I typed it, added a sentence or two and was just about to hit the ‘send’ button when I froze in horror. There, on the screen, was an electronic grenade with the pin pulled. The software had corrected my intended ‘specific’ to the (in this case) deadly ‘pacific’. I’m guessing that I had somehow missed out the ‘s’ as I hurriedly composed the message. Accordingly, my email now featured the phrase his pacific requirements.

A shiver ran down my spine.  I was but one touch of the keyboard -a mere fraction of a second- away from personal and professional humiliation.

As a bit of a purist (some might say language snob, some might say pedantic tosspot), I could never have recovered from the shame of having put such an email into the public domain. Saying "pacific" when you mean "specific" is one of the unforgivable sins. It’s worse than saying "hence why" in a sentence. It’s worse than saying "I was literally shitting myself watching that scary film" when you weren’t literally shitting yourself watching that scary film. It’s worse than saying "I’m going to give this 110%". It’s probably even worse than saying "totes amazeballs".  

It is hard to imagine a more heinous crime than sending a message featuring the phrase his pacific requirements. Had I hit the 'send' button and released that toxic email into cyberspace I would have had no choice but to commit hara-kiri, such would have been the shame I would have brought upon myself and my family. I could not have endured the ignominy, the sheer loss of face. I could not have walked the streets again, knowing that people would be sniggering at me behind my back, passing comments about ‘the idiot who says pacific when he means specific’. Ritual disembowelment would have been the only honourable way out. 

Hence why, whenever I’m writing emails from now on, I’m literally giving it like 110% concentration, pacifically spelling and grammer-wise.

A quick point (about pedantry)

Further to my post last week about the correct grammar to use while commenting on popular music, I was emailed by one correspondent who suggested that I had spent rather too much time lurking in what he called ‘pedantry corner’.

Without wishing to appear pedantic, my understanding of 'pedantry corner' would be that it is a term designed to describe an area or, if you will, milieu, in which the general practice (and celebration) of 'pedantry' is permitted and perhaps even encouraged by those who (might choose to) linger therein.

Perhaps my correspondent would have been better advised to have used the term ‘pedant’s corner’, which I think would accurately describe a corner (or, to be more precise, a nook or cranny) to which one would occasionally retreat (or retire) in order to consult various reference books (and also magazines and websites) for the purpose of resolving (or attempting to resolve) any dispute arising from a discussion on matters pertaining (or relating) to the arts, sciences, politics and /or popular culture.

And, just to be clear, by 'discussion', I do not mean an extended interval of interlocutory jousting carried out between persons located in the same room, or persons located in different places but communicating via telephone, 'walkie-talkie' or an internet connection. I mean (or meant) a printed representation purporting to reflect (or represent) a moderated series of opinions (or postulations) on a given topic, in this case the use (and, presumably, abuse and /or misuse) of grammatically robust terminology while discussing the merits and demerits of pop groups.

I hope that clears things up.

The correct terminology

The other day, I was talking to someone about music and he ventured the opinion that "Mumford and Sons are a pile of shite". Leaving to one side the question of whether or not I was inclined to agree with this assessment of the musical abilities of that particular combo, I paused before making a reply. Surely, I thought, both 'Mumford and Sons' and 'pile of shite' are singular terms? Accordingly, I believe my friend should have said: 'Mumford and Sons is a pile of shite', or perhaps: 'Mumford and Sons are piles of shite'. Or, to be more accurate: 'The music made by Mumford and Sons bears some resemblance to a pile (or piles) of shite’.

But eagle-eyed readers will already have spotted the glaring weakness in my reasoning. Yes, I had assumed, a priori, that he was talking about the musical abilities of the musicians collectively known as Mumford and Sons. But what if he was referring to the physical appearance of those musicians? What if he actually thought that the members of that group in some way resembled an aggregation of feculent debris? Harsh as such an assessment might have been, it would at least have been supported by a statement that was robust in its grammar and hermeneutics. After a few awkward moments, I decided to go with my gut feeling and settled on my initial interpretation, namely that my friend was talking about the musical abilities of the aforementioned combo (this in spite of having reservations about the incongruity of his comparison between the noise made by musicians and an essentially silent pile of waste). Even so, I could not help but suspect that it would have made things far simpler had he compared the noise made by the musicians known collectively as Mumford and Sons to another noise (perhaps, for example, a drunken folk singer with toothache trapped inside a malfunctioning industrial dryer).

For the sake of brevity, I granted his erroneous comparison while politely suggesting that he might have avoided confusion by framing his opening remark thus: "Notwithstanding the apparent incongruity of the attempted equivalence, the noise made by the musicians known collectively as Mumford and Sons bears some resemblance to a significant (and perhaps stacked) accumulation of human or animal waste material".

Grammar, I mused, can be such a minefield, or rather, series of minefields.

Incidentally, on the question of what constitutes a 'pile' of 'shite', I have long maintained that an accumulation of excrement dropped in one sitting by a large animal (an elephant, for example) should have a different status and nomenclature to a random scattering of fecal matter dropped by a number of smaller animals and then gathered into a 'pile' by a zoo-keeper or park attendant. At the risk of provoking the kind of heated exchange generated by my recent post on Thatcher-hatred, I would suggest that while these two 'piles' -to the untrained eye, at least- might appear to be similar, they are, in fact, entirely unrelated entities.

For anyone interested in exploring this topic in more detail, I've posted an article over at:

www.ohforfucksakestoptalkingshite.com