You Keep Using That Word: Vol. 7— Grammando Edition!
By Tiffany Yates Martin | September 3, 2024 |
Design by Camilla Monk
I’ve just learned a new word that speaks to the very soul of this semiregular column of mine: “grammando,” first used in 2012 by author and editor Lizzie Skurnick in her “That Should Be a Word” column in the New York Times Magazine.
As you might correctly infer, it refers to those people (I want to say “those of us” to myself and regular readers of this column) who take so seriously the strictly correct use of language that it may become their mission.
This word really hit a chord with me, as a former copy editor and current pedantic grammarian, and yet as I listened to linguist Anne Curzán on Adam Grant’s wonderful Re: Thinking podcast, where I first heard the term, I began rethinking my characterization of myself as a (rigid) word nerd.
I’m actually fascinated with slang and the evolution of language in the vernacular. To me—and I’m guessing to a lot of us—there’s music to the language we use, carefully thought out shades of meaning, sound and feel, and vibe we’re aiming for. In other words, voice.
One of the earliest lessons I learned as a copy editor was to respect the authors’ choices (or as I like to think of it, the editor’s Hippocratic Oath: “First do no harm”). Even if something’s technically wrong, if the author feels strongly about it they were generally permitted and even encouraged to overrule the correction.
I think one of the reasons I stayed in demand during my copyediting tenure was that not only was I able to pick up on author voice and such “off-label” usages, but also not try to homogenize it into rigid grammatical correctness.
Language purists, as in fact I have counted myself in the past, may be bristling right about now. I hear my mom’s voice in my head, for instance, bemoaning the end of civilization and humanity thanks to bastardizing our mother tongue.
But our mother tongue is not and never has been a fixed set of rules carved in ivory. With every subsequent generation it evolves with new usages and new words, and the extinction of others. In fact, Curzán cites the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, whose board of adjudicators she serves on, who say that the basis of their job is to try to keep up how you cats are using the language.
Oh, wait, people aren’t actually cats. Sorry, dude. Oh, wait, not all of you are actual dudes, even those of you who identify as male, since a dude was originally a ranch hand in the West. My bad, unc…but wait, you aren’t my uncle….
I could have used the strictly correct “people” in the above sentence, but that felt a little vanilla for the playful tone and voice I want to strike in these posts. (Oh, wait, vanilla is a plant, and a flavoring derived thereof.)
My feeling is that the literal and rigidly correct use of language can be just flat boring. If there is one element of story that I frequently count to writers as the most important in grabbing your reader and setting your story apart in a world where there is nothing new under the sun, it’s voice. So why would we want to strip that down and homogenize it so that every story sounds like everyone else’s?
Making Language Our Own
Many years ago I was copyediting Jennifer Weiner‘s book Good Night, Nobody when I laughed out loud at this line: “Mr. Pantene wore an everyhipster’s black turtleneck sweater and black jeans.”
Weiner made up the word, drawing on “everyman,” itself a made-up word sandwiching two distinct words together to create a new concept. But did you doubt for one second her meaning? Did it not carry a world of context along with it, and imagery far more vivid than simply describing the man’s attire, and draw you in with the sheer unexpectedness and originality of it? That, friends, is what good writing is, in my book. (Oh wait, this isn’t an actual book.)
Technology has changed not only every element of our culture and society and world, but it’s also changing the way we communicate. Text messages routinely use bastardized spellings and punctuation, if it uses any of the latter at all, but we’ve all learned to understand the meaning, and it certainly simplifies life not to get too hung up on writing painstakingly correct texts when all you want to know is RU home Im OMW
But technology changes are just speeding up a normal process of time shifting our language. Writer and deep thinker Tim Urban, in a recent tweet, posted that linguists estimate that language changes so much every 1,000 years that people at either end of that time span wouldn’t recognize what the other is speaking as the same language.
It can happen a lot faster than that. I once had an uncle who, back in the seventies, loved to talk about things that were “heavy.” He wasn’t talking about their actual weight, but rather concepts that were tricky to grab or freighted with meaning, as in, “Whoa, man, that’s heavy.” (That assessment may have been influenced, looking back now from my adult perspective, by the times he’d enjoyed a little too much bud—Mary Jane, ganja, grass, herb—to fully puzzle them through).
Not only was his meaning and attitude about a topic crystal-clear with this off-label usage, but it humanized him to me and made me laugh, and to this day it’s one of my favorite ways to remember him. I often invoke his spirit by intentionally and tongue-in-cheek adopting his usage of the word in conversations. I thought he was pretty far-out and rad.
I’m talking about much more than simply figurative language, metaphor and simile. Under my umbrella of not only linguistic inclusion but fascination I also include slang.
How the Kids Are Communicating These Days
I love the power language usage has to evoke a certain time period, or societal attitude, or characterization.
I love creativity and originality and personality in words like “rizz,” derived from “charisma,” as a shorthand and in fact somewhat charismatic way to describe someone who’s got main-character energy (not to be confused with BDE).
I also love how language cycles around, and a somewhat old-fashioned word like “lore” comes back into the vernacular with the cool kids who use it to describe their own personal backstories, or “da bomb” being modernized into the much cooler-sounding, “That’s bomb.”
I love how language can tell us about the people using it. If I tell you that you really put your foot in it, whether you feel upbraided or complimented depends on your culture. If I classify your basement rec room as dank, whether you take it as an insulting statement about its odor or a compliment about its coolness depends on your age.
If I command you to “slay,” whether you go on a killing spree or strut your fabulous self down a runway may depend on your sexual orientation. Younger people of all sexual persuasions might pick right up on the fact that I’m counseling you not to be basic and glow yourself up into a legit snack.
And I love the fun factor of middle-aged me popping out current slang that young people are using that serves only to point up my ridiculous unhipness. It makes me laugh, even if no one else does. LFG!
If my Gen X self says someone is a drip, you may understand it to be an insult about their general dullness, but Gen Zers know it’s a compliment about their fashion. IYKYK.
I might further bastardize the term and make it my own, as in, “I totally dig your drip,” where I’m amalgamating the dated seventies slang for liking something with eighties Valley Girl vernacular and the 2020s reappropriation of “drip”—showcasing my desire to be current and my love of language evolution and my middle-aged uncoolness all in one brief sentence. What a world we live in! That’s a lot more meaning and nuance and style and voice than if I simply said, “I admire your wardrobe.”
These evolving usages don’t reflect a disrespect for language to me. They actually show a profound passion for it, each generation, each person, claiming it for their own. I love that they convey nuance and feel as much as they do meaning. I love that these ever-evolving usages reflect a potent desire for communication over correctness.
Change or Die
Yes, meaning matters, and sometimes those hidebound rules are necessary to ensure clarity and understanding. But maybe these evolving usages are also necessary to ensure our language, our culture, our very selves don’t calcify or stagnate.
Frankly, I don’t miss the contortions of trying to avoid ending a sentence in a preposition that made all of us sound like pretentious douchebags. I’m not sad that the even douchier “whom” is slowly falling out of favor, even where it’s technically correct. I love the fact that I can use “literally” literally…but I can also now use it to convey “figuratively”—all shifting norms Curzán explores in her delightful book Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares about Words. (And Curzán knows “funner” is giving a lot of you a mad menty b.)
I don’t mean to flex, but I understand the assignment: Evolving language use keeps me and my brain evolving, keeps broadening my understanding, and helps build our understanding of each other. It expands our horizons beyond our established finite set of dull rules that make us all sound the same.
Curzán proposes a new word to replace the grammando approach: “wordie.” As with “foodie,” this implies someone who has a fascination and a love for the thing they are passionate about, an inclusive, open attitude toward trying new things and broadening their limited palate.
Just as with the time you foodies may have tried a crunchy fried insect or a quivering bowl of monkey brains, not everything may be your linguistic cup of tea. But a willingness to be open to trying it, and to accept that everybody’s tastes are their own and reflect who they are, is in keeping with the spirit of who most of us probably are as lovers of language.
And frankly that’s brat AF.
As with my more pedantic posts about language, I could do this all day—but I want to hear your favorite slang and off-label usages. Especially those of you with teens and younger children—what are the on-fleek kids these days saying? There’s every chance I’m going to incorporate them into my own cheugy vernacular (so cringe to young people and yet to my ears it slaps).
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and NYTimes, WaPo, WSJ, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers, and is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial and author of the Amazon bestseller Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. She leads workshops and seminars for conferences and writers’ groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers’ sites and publications. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she’s the author of six novels.
I ain’t listening. Nope. You can’t pedantic me into scribbling the way you noodle I should. That includes leaving out the word “that” when I ken literally well that it…ah, crap, you view? There’s that “that” again. I hate that. I want to nuke it to cereal dust.
Wordies! You are the Satan-spawn bastard kittens of the Woke. What if I just want to be solitary confined to yammer how I like? What if don’t give a peanut if anywho understands me? Who the Zeke gives a flying pig the way I bullhorn my flapjacks anyway?
Words are pistols. Grammar is handcuffs. Don’t give me no podcasts on white glove “usage”, I ain’t listening. The English symphony don’t need to “evolve”, it be perfectly rap the way it spin cycles. Come on. Let’s proudly fly the dirty laundry of the Pious and Ratchets who made this tongue wag!
There! I hope that…dang! What the cheese? That again! I hate rules, but they’re hogtied into me. It’s all your football!
You. Are. Awesome, Benjamin!
Laughing!
Ha! I’m with you, friend–the inner grammando is STRONG with me…but so is my whimsical wordie that loves parsing out playful prose. My linguistic angel and devil on my shoulders…
Hey Tiffany — I always love these posts, and this one really speaks to something we, as writers, should keep at the forefront of consciousness. In epic fantasy, quite often authors purposefully utilize language that sounds archaic. The prose can add so much more than atmosphere. It can enhance our immersion into another world. Keeping that in mind, I recently picked up a hot epic fantasy author whom I’d yet to read. For me, her prose reads like a lengthy Twitter thread. It was so jarring to me in the moment, I had to set the book aside.
I’m thinking perhaps my attitude was a bit archaic. I suppose Grampa should give it another go. Maybe after my morning prunes and coffee get my day trotting along. Thanks for keeping these essays vital and lively!
That’s funny, Vaughn–expectations (as with genre) can have such an impact, can’t they? But there’s also personal taste–a voice one reader loves can be off-putting to another (ask me about Kevin Kwan). ;)
Instead of a favorite off-label use, here’s a saying that’s always stuck with me about strict grammandos: “She’s not a lesbian, she’s never even been to Lesbos.” Um, no.
I figure the proper place to use “whom” is never, ever, ever. Unless there are bells tolling.
Literally (in the literal sense) the only place “whom” doesn’t sound excessively douchey. ;)
rotfl. Or is that out of date now? Thanks for your humor! Debra
Everything is out of date as soon as anyone my age utters it, I think. That’s how we keep these youngsters on their toes…. ;) Thanks, Debra!
You had me at “pretentious douchbags’. Actually (my grandson’s former favorite), I was in when I saw it was you. Grammando has a certain gravitas but ‘wordie’ lends a playfulness that I need to cultivate, seeing as how I sometimes wish we could all speak like 14th C British royalty. But I also love how language evolves. I’m fortunate to have two teachers, one ten and one thirteen, who keep me current. Apparently, I slay. I’ve also discovered a rich trove of vocabulary examples in my 23-yr-old niece’s Instagram comments, mostly fashion related. You have a gift for mixing education with humor. I’ll think if a word for it.
You’re so lucky you have insiders in the younger gens to keep you current! I have to eavesdrop on other people’s children, which one must do with care. :) Thanks for the kind words, Susan–I love this nonsense.
Love this post and love the idea of being a “wordie.”
I used to be one of those boring, pedantic people who didn’t think English should change. Then, I studied medieval literature in graduate school and learned just how often English evolves, borrows, and outright steals.
Now, I’m like you: Eager to see where and how it will grow and evolve next. Bring on the next course of English idioms, generational slang, and newly coined words. I’m ready!
It’s shocking, isn’t it? I knew it from majoring in English lit, but Curzan’s book really made me rethink some of my rigid boundaries (and as you can tell, I really don’t have that many of those…). For me it’s like watching evolution in action, like a constantly shifting code I get to keep trying to crack. I love it. Thanks, Ruth!
Exactly. When I first started working on a copy desk I’ll bet I was a pain. There is no proselytizer like the recently converted, and now I was an EDITOR! But after many years and a lot of writing and couple of ESL teaching jobs, I only want to be sure that would-be writers understand the importance not only of learning the rules but of learning to *bend* the rules in such a way that the occasional outbreak of good writing can survive.
See? That last sentence was way too long. (Editor!)
Isn’t that the truth? The hallmark of newbie-ness always seems to be rigidity regarding the “rules.” Once you know them, it’s fun to play with them–as in writing itself, right? Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but to me the experimentation is a big part of the creative process.
Yo, Tiffany.
“…not only was I able to pick up on author voice and such “off-label” usages, but also not try to homogenize it into rigid grammatical correctness.”
As one who regularly breaks the rules (I hope with conscious intent), and whose writing has been edited by you, I can bear witness: you picked up on my voice and understood what I was up to. In other words, no schoolmarm nit-picking over things like sentence fragments. And so forth. For which I thank you.
Well, Barry, this makes me spew rainbows–I’m zazzed. Glad to hear I obeyed my own Prime Directive with your wonderful story! I’m with you–not a fan of homogenizing an author’s voice with grammatical rigidity. Where’s the fun–and creativity–in that? If meaning is clear and it doesn’t jar the reader (a subjective determination, of course), every author should fly their personal wordie flag.
Brilliant! Language is forever evolving. Take the word ‘homely’, which went one direction in the States and another in Britain.
Oh, that one trips me up every time! I always have to remind myself I’m not being insulted. ;)
I correct grammar in my head – tv commercials, signs, people talking, etc. I’ve been pretty strict about it. However, when I am writing, as I am doing now, fast and furious, I let a lot go. It began to be exhausting to have perfect comments, perfect texts, perfect FB posts. So I spit it out, and try to read back over it, or not. Ha!
In my novels, my Editor Side became stronger as my editing skills strengthened but I don’t think anyone would notice and that’s great since they shouldn’t notice me at all (though an editor may notice if they really looked for it). However, I had a rule, and this rule I especially used if I edited someone else’s work and it’s as you say — you have to respect the voice of the writer and of the character(s) they are creating. And it’s a fine line sometimes. In my own works, my rule was that in dialogue I could more strongly be in the character’s voice and in the narrative a little more ‘formal.’ First person kind of complicated things. But I knew the dance I was sashaying. VK made up words all the time.
It’s good to know the rules so you can effectively break them and I firmly believe this. Otherwise … it can be a mess.
I can’t think of fave things but I can tell you some things drive me crazy, like when people put “Baby” after everything: Vegas, Baby! started it. Then it was everything, Baby!
Now, because I’m feeling bold today and debbel may care, I’m not even going to read back over this cause I’m feeling the mood, Baby!
I literally–literally-literally–just used “baby” in my blog post for Thursday morning! I shall now call it the Kathryn Magendie commemorative “baby.” I admit to being a fan–I like the casual intimacy it implies. But we all have our pet peeves (ask me about “snuck”). I also admit to generally proofing my emails, texts, and all other correspondence, like a giant nerd. (Part of that is an occupational hazard–I feel standards may be subconsciously higher for a professional editor.)
And yes, I too bristle at “rules” so much that I always put it in quotes–including in every instance of it in my books. And I’m a big fan of knowing what’s correct, such as it is in a subjective field, and then playing around with it. The only incontrovertible “rule” of any subjective field like creativity–if it works, it works!
For years, my business card has read: “Editing with an eye to perfection and total respect for the author’s vision and voice.” In this instance, perfection means clear communication. I come from a family that loves words and play therewith. Coining our own like immatistical (adjective), kazizzee (noun), and antiundisirregardless.
Respect for the author’s vision and voice is paramount for an editor, I agree! (And my “tagline” is similar: “I help authors find the best version of their vision.”)
My family, too, has always been word-playful–maybe that’s what predisposes us toward wordie-ism instead of grammando-hood?
Healthy doesn’t like being eaten.
And other pet peeves.
If you want to last, though, stick to clean standard grammar and usage: it has plenty of variety already, to distinguish characters and tell stories. But we wouldn’t be able to read Great Expectations or Jane Eyre had they gone all vernacular on us.
It probably depends on your chosen audience – I’m happy enough playing in that wave pool.
That’s the beauty of what we do–something for every taste! You may be right about longevity (but don’t tell it to Chaucer or Shakespeare), but I can’t help embracing delicious off-label vernacular…it’s too fun to me.
This is poignant (do young people still use that word?) Language is plastic and always will be. Humans must adapt to our ever changing environment and thus (another older word) language changes with advances, science and the addition of peoples speaking different languages. As I write this I am in a medical office discussing a chronic disease that my husband has. Language? Science and advancement? The words we have just been discussing I guarantee would be unfamiliar to most. Thanks for your insight!! Beth
OH, how I agree with adapting! “Change or die” has been my motto (one of many, I confess) most of my life. Even when I go into change with teeth gritted and feet dragging, I always go. Being adaptable has kept my career alive and thriving across so many changes in my industry, and it keeps my mind feeling young and fresh and alive. As soon as we resist change we stagnate, and Darwin would suggest things don’t go well for us after that.
Sorry about your hubs’s health issues, Beth–hope all is okay!
This post makes me wish I was up-to-date on slang. Having no children, I’m out of the loop. Significant parts of my WIP take place in the early 1960’s, before the 60’s were the 60’s, so I’ve had lots of fun researching slang from that era. My pet peeve (there must be a newer term for those) re “evolving” language is the opposite of slang, the formalization of common phrases that deadens, not enlivens, the language. In the restroom of a major grocery chain I saw this sign: “If the condition of this facility is unsatisfactory, please inform an associate of the opportunity.”
I have no kids, grumpy! Eavesdrop on others’ kids! (Gingerly…) A friend of mine calls this conversational shoplifting, and I am HERE FOR IT.
I’m with you on the standardization of misuses (a girl can only keep her mind SO open)–I blurt out “corrections” in full voice like an autonomic reflex (to my husband’s frequent embarrassment). But I admit the Curzan book lowered my battlements a bit–if you enjoy this sort of pedantry, I recommend it.
I endorse your message but my reader brain descended from cowboys must note that dudes were definitely not ranch workers. Dude was a term of derision for fancy people visiting the West who had no clue about the workings of that world.
Oh, I love it when I misuse words in my posts about misused words! Thanks for the correction, cowboy. ;)
Tiffany, I have to reverse this caboose: This post gave me the fantods because of all the flapdoodle therein. Essentially piffle, though dashed with buckets of hogwash, some passing malarkey, weighty bunkum, and a bouquet of poppycock. A table full of tommyrot, a twist of twaddle. In the main, codswallop!
Which is to say, reading this was big-time fun—thank you.
(BTW, being an adolescent in the 60s, I was lightheaded, but everything was “heavy” to me.)
Well, if my post entertained you, you have more than returned the favor, my friend! I read this grinning. You’re right, even archaic vernacular is fun! Language is a malleable DELIGHT, isn’t it? Thanks for the smile.
Oh how I loved this post. Thank you! It’s fascinating that it took me so long in life to fall in love with, not the meaning of words, but their story. I write fantasy so I often create terms, often digging into ancient Greek or Latin. In my Pannulus stories, which are reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties in a different world, I love sprinkling in some of the most recognizable 1920s slang. I also, given it’s fantasy, create a little of my own slang based on that world and its magic, but always take care to make it sound like it fits. All this makes me recall the child that I was, each week anxious because I struggled in spelling, my pass or fail fate often coming down to that last report card. Yet, I never, ever failed to get an A in social studies. It’s all about story.
I love that you create your own hybrid dialect in your stories, Christina. I know a writer who created an entire language for hers, basing it on other ancient languages so hers would feel realistic, as it sounds like you do too. It was impressive.
And hell, yes, EVERYTHING is about story, isn’t it? I am endlessly fascinated by it too. :) Thanks for the kind word.
As a student of linguistics, I learned that language is a living thing, continuously evolving, and that common usage eventually replaces the “good grammar” in books that are out of date by the time they are published. Consequently, I have one word for you: Bravo!
Ha–thanks! It’s the truth–when I was a copyeditor I had to have the most current editions of the industry-standard dictionary (Merriam-Webster’s New Collegiate) and the Chicago Manual, and with every update I would ravenously look for the changes. Language reflects and is created by us; it’s not some unchanging set of “rules” handed down from on high. I thought it was so interesting that Curzan said the American Heritage advisory board updates the dictionary based on evolving common usage, rather than it working the other way around.
Thank you for this colorful, flavorful post. One of the things you’ve pointed out to me is that I speak Old [American] English (olde without the final e.) There are portions of the current century that I enjoy, but I am an interloper, a trespasser with no vestige of claim to a place in this time. I don’t disapprove, I just have trouble keeping up. I need a generational translator. Fortunately for all, I don’t text much. I can’t manage the cyber dialect. But I realize and appreciate that each age has its unique way of delivering its unique message.
Tiffany, I share your appreciation of voice; I see it as the persona with whom I’m going to spend the next sixty to eighty thousand words. Or more. I’m one volume and two hundred words from completing Will and Ariel Durant’s eleven volume Story of Civilization. In addition to his chops as a historian, he’s a wonderful observer of human nature and of culture, and best of all a terrific storyteller about a lot of things my formal education failed to make interesting or valuable. (Or maybe the timing was just wrong.)
Sorry I can’t close with some timely acronome. (Acronome, alt. alphanome – A collection of letters representing the first letter of words in a phrase (ICYMI).
And yet YOU DID IT, ending the comment with just the right acronym. Score one for Bob. :) And FWIW about you feeling hidebound in your own language use, I am equally enchanted with archaic vernacular as with modern versions (as in Tom Bentley’s delightful comment here). In my small-town Southern elementary school I got made fun of because I said things like “ages ago” and “nevertheless.” A little baby linguistic dinosaur myself.
I agree that voice is so important as far as what makes readers gravitate to certain stories and authors. And so subjective! A big part of the glory of what we do, all the many personal permutations of any creative career, whether the preferences of the creator or the recipient. Thanks for the comment.
You can pry “whom” from my cold dead hands.
That’s the beauty of our malleable, subjective language–you may contentedly “whom” your way into eternity. :)