Ask Mr. Language Person

One of my readers, Ruth Hull Chatlien who lives somewhere on the frozen tundra up north, left this comment on yesterday’s post:

“Ah, you have the soul of an editor. Most people really don’t notice stuff like that, but to a language person, they are indeed disorienting.”

The jury is still out concerning whether I have the soul of an editor, but I really perked up when she called me “a language person.” That is definitely true. Yes, indeedy. However, I can’t hold a candle to the all-time champion in that field, the man with the phenomenally creative mind that had the entire English-speaking world rolling in the aisles and gasping for air for years, Dave Barry.

I can hear some of you saying, “Who?”

Well, according to our old friend Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, David “Dave” Barry (born July 3, 1947) “is a [sic] American author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. He has also written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comedic novels.” (Note. I don’t expect ever again to have an opportunity to insert such an accurate editorial addition at such an appropriate place in a sentence.) But he is so much more than that. To me, he will forever be the writer of the “Ask Mr. Language Person” pieces that have invariably left me, as I said, rolling in the aisles, gasping for air.

To anyone out there who considers himself or herself “a language person” (and you know who you are), I would like to say that “this too shall pass” but I cannot because it won’t. Therefore, as a humanitarian gesture, I am including this link to a number of Dave Barry’s “Ask Mr. Language Person” columns, or as my son-in-law would refer to them, a “plethora.” A plethora in this case means fifteen; my personal favorites are numbers 12, 14, and 15. If you are “a language person,” all of the columns are downright hilarious, so just be sure the aisles are clear and you have an oxygen tank ready. If your name is Pat and you are “an Arkansas stamper,” which is completely different from being “a language person,” an initial fit of giggles may lead to the accesses of insanity and you might come dangerously close to having a Pond Spell. [For those of you who don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, I refer you to my post of June 29, 2008, “It looks even more like Cair Paravel from this angle” and a couple of the comments afterward from Pat. --RWP]

A caveat to the curious, which is sort of like a word to the wise, only different: If you insist on clicking on any of the links in the link I linked you to, I cannot be responsible for what you may find. If you persist, you may even wind up on the web page of Dr. Robert P. O’Shea, a professor of psychology at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand.