Ground zero substance
Though it’s a little early to start endorsing presidential candidates, Joe Biden sprinted ahead of the pack last week with this gem at the Democratic debate: “Rudy Giuliani: There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence—a noun, a verb and 9/11.”
So that makes 9/11 ... the predicate? The direct object? Could even be the subject.
Most likely, though, it’s a punctuation mark: Giuliani uses it to exclaim, to question, to punctuate a sentence, but rarely does it add any substance.
Treat it like when a copy editor sees an exclamation point: Take it out of the sentence and ask yourself, “Does this exclamation point really need to be here, or could the sentence work just as well with a period?”
Period wins almost every time. Go Biden.
“-Cal” of the wild
An avid reader wrote in last week: “Your most recent article on historic vs. historical makes me wonder ... ironic or ironical?”
There’s a whole slew of words—ironic/ironical, fantastic/fantastical, tragic/tragical, phantasmagoric/phantasmagorical—that have the same definition with or without the “-al” ending. In some cases (tragical, ironical), the “-al” ending is a bit older. But in definition and usage, they’re basically identic. Er, identical.
Shakespeare was pretty fond of the “-al.” In a famous Hamlet passage, Polonius calls up, “The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.”
Typically fewer letters is better, so for brevity’s sake, omit the “-al.” But anyone who can pull off “phantasmagorical” in the Angry Grammarian Great Scrabulous Tournament Challenge Rumpus gets an automatic win.
Scrabble-rouser
What’s that, you say? The Angry Grammarian Great Scrabulous Tournament Challenge Rumpus?
Yep! Scrabulous—the Facebook version of the classic word-nerd game—has ballooned to nearly half a million members actively using it daily, so it’s time for a tourney.
To play, search for “The Angry Grammarian Great Scrabulous Tournament Challenge Rumpus” on Facebook, and join the group. Brackets will be sent out soon, and players will compete, elimination-style, until someone is crowned champion. Registration deadline is Monday, November 19. Good luck!
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