Last words

My last post, as anyone who still reads this blog will know, was an appreciation of an old friend. And I was glad (you can tell I sang this yesterday, but that's another story) to learn that there was an obituary * of Alastair Fulton in the Herald last week. And that is where the gladness began and ended.

Previously I have bemoaned inadequate funeral services as being unworthy of the deceased and unhelpful to those who loved them. Now I find myself bemoaning what I see as a sadly inadequate piece of writing, let alone a reminder of someone I knew. There seems to be a tradition (is there?) that newspaper obits have to be dry and factual, covering a linear model of a life that resembles nothing so much as the "thank-you" speech at the end of a charity event: don't forget the lady who does the flowers or your life won't be worth living. That sort of thing. And as far as that goes, if indeed that is the requirement for a respectable newspaper, then as far as I'm concerned respectable newspapers have indeed had their day.

And that may be a very personal reaction to a piece that some of my friends thought was good. They perhaps had the advantage of hearing more of the real ABF at the funeral I sadly missed. What is not merely personal preference, however, is my despair that someone so linguistically talented and knowledgable should have been commemorated in such weak syntax. From memory, lest I come over all red pen, I shall recall only the strange use of the pluperfect verb in the opening sentence and the misrelated participle in the penultimate one. ABF would not have missed these.

So, ABF, this post is for you. Missing the certainty of acerbic comment on my own epistolary infelicities, I offer this last thought. You were much, much more than a mere list of activities could convey. Pervixisti indeed.

*Of course, obits like this can also be read online, but the ethos remains...

The anatomy of enjoyment ...

I've dragged myself away from the latest Kate Atkinson (Started Early, Took my Dog) partly in an effort not to gallop through it too swiftly (memories of childhood again: after the Saturday trip to the library I had to be careful to leave myself at least one book for the school week evenings), partly to note what I'm so enjoying in the process of exposition that I'm currently reading.

So - I note the skill with which the characters are introduced and are linked, like a flow-chart or the diagram of some organic chemistry process (very dimly recalled from school), as someone on the fringes of one character's observation becomes the focus of the next chapter, and so on. And I love the skill with which the necessary details are drawn in - the mental asides, the references to each character's past which give us just what we need to empathise, but never enough to bore with superfluity. I already feel I know two new people, as well as having a progress update on her recurring hero, Jackson Brodie (clever, that, to ensure that a newcomer to her books will know enough, without boring the afficionado).

And the writing. I now recognise what's going on - the fluidity of syntax which sits comfortably with the internal monologue that is part of all our lives, that conveys context and emotions, reaction and reasons. Much of it uses what in another context might be regarded as a spot of comma-splice, but it isn't: the stream of consciousness rarely makes mistakes but rather defies the rigidity from which in another life I fought to release my students.

Right. I think I'm about to have another Lemsip and read some more. But can I share one final joy? I'm reading the book in hardback (it was a gift) - and it has its own silky attached bookmark, like the ones in a lectern bible. How civilised is that?

Calm restored. For now.

Well well. The Dunoon Observer appeared today with my piece over which the argument arose intact - complete with the "Ands" which a hapless sub deemed unacceptable. I must say I was pleased to see this; perhaps there are areas in which people are prepared to bend after all. I should jolly well hope so anyway.

Thing is, of course, when you teach in a small community, everyone knows who you are and what you do - and if stuff with your name under it starts appearing in a form which anyone you've taught would wonder at, then it's time to stop. In today's edition of the paper, for example, a swift skim discovered a split infinitive (I know - I'm old-fashioned), a singular subject with a plural verb and an example of the word "nice" in its customarily lazy usage.

But at least it's not under my name. Whew.

English as she is spoke

My pal Kenny blogged the other day about his use of the word "amn't". You can catch the drift (and the ten comments so far) here, where you'll see that in addition to the "speaking properly" question there is a confusion about what constitutes dialect. I've probably visited this subject before, but feel moved, as I used to when teaching, to revisit.

It is the scourge of this part of the world to aspire to posh talk. Often this will have a southern English accent and a tendency to use the nominative form of the personal pronoun whatever the grammatical requirements of a sentence. I've had to deal with pupils quite adamant that "Mrs X told Jimmy and I not to do that" was correct because their mother insisted they didn't say "me" in that context - it took about twenty exemplar sentences and the removal of all other nouns to show them the principle behind it. Of course, they hadn't been parsing sentences from age seven or wrestling with Latin, poor ignorant little mites ...

But it's this business of confusing grammatical inaccuracy with dialect that is currently getting my goat. "Amn't" is a perfectly legitimate contraction of "am I not" - and the absurd "Aren't I" is simply wrong, no matter how many marbles fill the mouth of the speaker. Dialect involves words like "scunner" and "glaikit" - regional words used in sentences which may be syntactically perfect.

Am I alone in caring about stuff like this? I know that some of my colleagues complained that with my departure from the school there would be no-one to ask about the grammar bits in Interpretation passages - for my generation was almost the last to be routinely educated in this fashion. And does it really matter in the greater scheme of things? I'd say yes. For I'm convinced that a grasp on the finer points of sentence construction is what still makes people accuse me of being nippy (moi? nippy? I ask you!) because I can say what I mean with relative brevity and clarity, and that much never can be obsolete ...

And besides, I can always feel smug when I see others getting it wrong. Or enraged.

Note: There's a wee quotation hidden in that lot. Usual plaudits apply.