I try to make sure that what I write is grammatically correct, as correct as a dumb freight broker can make it. So it bugs me when I see or read things that go clunk.
In the past, I’ve written about the labels on hamburger and hot dog buns, and store-bought bagels that proudly announce “pre-sliced.” It seems to me that the word pre would indicate it’s not yet sliced. I can’t imagine a frozen food maker labeling its product “pre-frozen.” Like the word sliced, it’s either frozen or not. After doing some research, though, it seems I’m wrong about what’s grammatically correct in the pre-sliced universe, not the marketing types for the food manufacturers I complain about. So what do I know? Not much.
On the other hand, while researching the phrase “Happy Belated Birthday,” a grammatical clunker that hits my psyche in the gut when I hear or see it, my aggravation turned out to be “on the money.” While it’s way too common a greeting, the correct phrasing reverses “Belated” and “Happy.” Belated is an adjective that modifies “happy,” indicating that the wish for a happy birthday was late, not the birthday itself, which is almost always on time. Only when the birthday is late is the phrase Happy BELATED Birthday appropriate.
As you may have guessed when reading my ramblings, my knowledge of grammar is rudimentary. I can’t define “gerund” or find one in a piece of writing. Verbs and adverbs spring forth from my keyboard but don’t ask me which ones are which. Clauses, I’m told, are groups of words that contain a subject and a verb and are either independent or dependent.
A sanity clause is about all I can define, and like Groucho slyly said, “There is no Sanity Clause,” as he struck said clause from a contract.
The above brings me to two rants about television shows and movies. Both, like pre-sliced bread products and late birthday greetings, are utterly irrelevant to the republic, but they bug me, maybe more than they should.
The Bohunk and I have found ourselves watching—bingeing, I think it’s called these days—a variety of television police procedurals and mysteries, both US and UK produced. Some are great, some are good, and some should not have been made. But I digress.
The first rant is about scenes changing mystically from day to night. Have you ever seen a scene where two cops are standing outside the police station and get a call that sends them off at a high rate of speed to save a kidnapped victim or corral a serial killer? Notice that it’s a bright sunny afternoon in the parking lot, and by the time they pull up in the next scene, complete darkness has settled in. It may begin in sunshine, yet it will be pouring rain by the time they arrive at their destination. It goes the other way, too, from wet to dry and dark to light.
Producers, directors, and editors should do better. If those things turn off an inattentive viewer like me, how can the professionals not see it? Or maybe in their haste to churn out products quickly and under budget, they just don’t care that minds like mine are jarred by the unbelievable.
Same too when the main characters in a series are found in a shooting scene or other violence and end up only slightly injured, if injured at all. Or they recover in days from a near-death beating with minimal bruising.
Conversely, the bad guys seem to catch the lead and die or get easily pounded into unconsciousness. Think of the “Reacher” type series. Is it just me who starts wondering?
Secondly (an adverb), I’m bothered by movies and shows that go back in time. They’re called flashbacks, I guess, and get used multiple times during a show. Not all shows or movies use them, so you don’t feel vertigo from watching them as the program jerks you from 2025 to 2012.
The Bohunk and I watch these programs together, and I find myself asking her more and more as scenes change, “Is this then, or is it now?” Sometimes, even the observant Bohunk is stumped.
As I said earlier, much greater concerns for the republic should attract our outrage. So why do these language and media manipulations bother me so?
