Sex and Good Grammar

 

An alert reader sent Life in the Boomer Lane a joke titled “Sex and Good Grammar,” about a 74-year-old man who gets his fondest wish for his birthday.  LBL won’t go into the details of the joke.  She invites readers to Google it on their own.  Instead, LBL got to thinking about the grammar of sex.  Or rather, the grammar we use when we are having sex. Or rather, grammar in general.

In most cases people are prone to tossing grammar out the window during sex, reverting to Oooh, Aaah, Yes, Oh God, That’s it, Lower, Higher, Oh Baby, and The dog’s tongue is really rough.  Any alert reader can see that the last statement is the only one that is grammatically correct and so is the only one that should ever be used during nookie nookie.

We have the same problems out of bed. The rules of the English language are gradually being reduced to mild suggestions, to be used only in the event of being in fifth grade.  For actual everyday life, which includes newscasts and TV talk shows, language is less dependable. It’s sort of like Match.com, a hit or miss proposition, often resulting in something that you sort of can figure out what it means but you don’t want to think about it too closely or it will make you sick.

Newscasters are bad.  Politicians are worse. They are like two-year-olds at play.  At a distance, they look like they are saying things that make perfect sense. But a closer visual inspection will result in the realization that Batman and Spiderman often visit the pirate ship, and speak in tongue to the captain, who happens to be a smiling lion. The result is that a strict interpretation of what is being said makes no sense at all.

LBL has observed this same phenomena in whoever creates instructions for how to assemble anything. One may start out attempting to assemble a battery-powered kiddie car and end up with a washer that does not include a spin cycle.

LBL understands that the English language is very difficult to master, having been formed as a result of the Colonists trying to disassociate themselves from Mother England. For that reason, they invented “yo” and “talk to the hand” and any other number of useless phrases that they felt would horrify the Brits.

 The advent of computer technology, specifically texting, didn’t help.  An entire new pseudo-English was created, defined by how well we tapped tiny buttons, as we ate lunch, changed the baby’s diaper, and shaved, all while changing lanes. One can understand why this often resulted in grammar casualty, if not actual loss of life.

And let’s face it.  A lot of grammar is silly anyway. Like dangling participles. Dangling participles are like gluten.  We don’t actually know what they are, only that we must avoid them at all cost.  Misplaced modifiers are like that, as well. People have been trying to find them for some time now, but as of yet, no one has.

A word of caution: If you are living in a depleted gene pool world and want to improve yourself, don’t try too hard.  This only results in saying things like “The waiter gave my boyfriend and I the check.” “I” might seem classier in this case, but it is entirely incorrect. “Me” is actually the correct word to use. Just stick with “Me and Lloyd got the check from the waiter.” The only thing that’s important here is that you (and/or Lloyd) paid the check and left an adequate tip (15-20% at lunch, 20% at dinner).

If, on the other hand, your Lloyd has a master’s degree but works as a vacuum cleaner bag salesman and hasn’t paid for a meal since the first day you went out with him and now he wants to invite a fellow vacuum cleaner bag salesman friend to come live with the two of you, you have a far more serious issue than the scope of this post can address.  We suggest that you stop focusing on grammar and start focusing instead on getting a good deal on an Aerobed.