Question Of The Day

Did Yankee Doodle name the feather, hat, town, or his pony Macaroni?

First of all, who even wastes time thinking of such questions? I suppose that really isn't the point though.

The point is I don't know the answer. I am a very literal, science minded person. Completely the opposite of my husband. His literary interests frustrate me to no end because he claims to KNOW exactly what the author meant by whatever it is that he wrote. Explain to me how my husband, as wonderful and intelligent as he is, can KNOW exactly what Mr. Yankee Doodle was thinking when he called it macaroni? Yet, somehow, my husband does not know exactly what I mean when I ask him to put the dishes in the dishwasher or do a load of laundry. Go figure.

I'm certain he will pull some answer out of his butt that indicates he knows EXACTLY what Yankee Doodle Dandy called macaroni. But I digress. I stand by the fact that until my husband understands what I mean when I ask him to put the toys away, take out the trash, or any of 1000 other household chores, we can never know about Yankee Doodle Dandy. And more importantly, it does not matter!

Janice

Did Yankee Doodle name the feather, hat, town, his pony Macaroni?

Seeing as how I’m an English teacher (yeah, I know), I have to look at this from the perspective of a scholar of the language. Can there be anything worse than unclear pronoun references? I guess, in a perfect world, you’d go to the store, and say, “I want one of them things.” Without question, the clerk would walk away and come back with exactly what you wanted. In our world of silly language, he’d come back with a box of condoms and an RC cola. (You westerners still have those, don’t you?)

To me, pronouns are one of the major issues in relationships. There should be some sort of punishment for using them when you’re married. Like, if you call your wife “you,” you should be shot in the thigh. You can only say, “Hi, wife” or “Hi, husband.” That way, there’s no confusion. And, we can get rid of all those silly terms of endearment. Pronouns and adverbs are terrible. All you young writers out there, remember that. (How many of each did I use in just this post? Go count). And remember, don’t ever listen to my wife. She uses lots of pronouns.

Chris