humor (was Re: SPUD acroetymythology (1927))

[Wilson Gray]

Welll, I, for one, am happy to have that cleared up. But, just in case
that it hasn't been, let me say this about that: ;-)

-Wilson

-

On 9/8/05, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: humor (was Re: SPUD acroetymythology (1927))
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Think you're funny, do you ?
>
> We don't MAKE JOKES about GRAMMAR around here.
>
> JL
>
> "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
> Subject: humor (was Re: SPUD acroetymythology (1927))
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sep 8, 2005, at 6:31 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > Today's modest proposal is to place warning labels on utterances
> > intended as humor so that everyone will know a joke when they see
> > one (and can laugh if they so desire), and no one can possibly be
> > misinformed later on. Excessively "dry" humor would be available
> > only by prescription.
>
> on a number of occasions, readers of the Language Log have mistaken
> the intentions of the contributors; parody and irony are especially
> likely to be missed. in some cases, the contributors have felt
> obliged to add explanations to their postings, to avoid overly
> literal-minded interpretations.
>
> at the moment i'm trying to decide what to do about e-mail following
> on my little piece, "Cartoonists on the grammatical front line" --
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002457.html
>
> which reproduced a letter from Byrna Weir to The Key Reporter about
> grammatical "mistakes" in the comics. Weir's advice was: "Creators
> could provide a service to readers of all ages if they would have
> characters speak correctly."
>
> to this i said:
>
> -----
> Correct is correct, no matter what the context. Correctness trumps
> reality. Novelists please copy: if they come for the cartoonists
> today, they may come for you tomorrow.
>
> Many sighs.
> -----
>
> i thought this was sufficiently rueful that readers would understand
> that "Correct is correct, no matter what the context. Correctness
> trumps reality." was not an expression of my opinion, but a
> (sarcastic) restatement of Weir's, though without explicit
> attribution. (certainly, i hope no one's going to start citing me as
> a proponent of the position that "correct is correct...") i thought
> that the context would have made this clear, and i thought that
> anyone who reads the Language Log even occasionally would have
> divined my attitude, and the attitude of fellow bloggers like Geoff
> Pullum and Mark Liberman, towards "grammatical sticklers".
>
> but no. from a reader: "With your closing comment "Correctness
> trumps reality," you lend your support to Byrna Weir's appreciation
> of Eleanor Gould's pet peeve [about the placement of "only"]..."
>
> i have explained myself in e-mail to this reader, but i wonder if i
> should add an explanation to the posting itself. i just *hate* the
> idea of glossing my rhetorical stances -- it's like explaining that
> something is a joke, and how the joke is supposed to work, i mean,
> where's the artfulness in *that*? -- but i also worry about how
> widespread this misreading is.
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>
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--
-Wilson Gray