Category: Ask the AB

Reader Rachel asks:

Is being “sexual napalm” a good or a bad thing? People magazine articles on the subject are inconclusive, and I’m trying to get my new years resolutions in order.

Well, Urban Dictionary told me it’s a “sexual hold a woman has on you similar to being addicted to drugs”, and I thought I’d advise you to put it on your New Year’s Resolutions list, just above making your bed every day, because it could be very useful in terms of manipulating your husband.

But then I looked at wikipedia, which states that “napalm can cause severe burns (ranging from superficial to subdermal) to the skin and body, asphyxiation, unconsciousness, and death”. And if you do that, you’ll have, at best, a gimpy husband and, at worst, a dead husband. Both types of husbands are very hard to manipulate.

My book club just read “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffenegger.

I hated it and will, forthwith, enumerate the reasons why.

Number one: Third person omniscient point-of-view sucks anyway, and Niffeneggar executed it particularly badly in this novel, sometimes writing from different characters’ perspectives in the same paragraph.

Number two: Only one of the characters was remotely likable and had a compelling arc. That was Martin, the upstairs neighbor who suffered from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. As you might have guessed, the upstairs neighbor was not one of the main characters. All the main characters were needy, whiny, pathetic, and/or generally uninteresting.

Number three: The author put all the characters’ thoughts in italics…and there were a lot of them. Here’s a sample: “Martin stood holding the letter. The worst thing has happened. He could not take it in.  She’s gone. She would not come back.”

Take out italics; a little shift in tense…Presto change-o! Tell me it’s not better thus: “Martin stood holding the letter. The worst thing had happened. He could not take it in. She was gone. She would not come back.”

Number four: The “twist” was predictable. It had been done better and, more importantly, twenty-five years ago in a Young Adult novel I read called Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan.

Number five: The denouement was wholly unsatisfying. I’m thinking she was under deadline and wrote the last 30 pages in 30 minutes. “OK, this one has a baby, the guy leaves her, so-and-so gets a boyfriend, and what’s-her-name finds a crow to fly away on. Done! Whew!”

I could give you more reasons why I hated this book, but I hope that gives you enough to go on.

Thanks for asking.

There’s really no rest for a person with a grammar stick up her butt. I’m just bothered by so many things. Of course, putting my peeves out into cyberspace is stupid because

(1) I’m sure to make mistakes too, inviting fist-shaking and cries of “Hypocrite!”;

(2) grammar rules evolve;

(3) I often abandon grammar rules for the sake of voice [see asterisks]; and

(4) who the hell wants to read a blog post about grammar anyway?

(Watch that not stop me!)

In addition, I follow certain British rules that American grammarians would consider incorrect. For example, from the last post: My girlfriends and I have this game we call “Gross Crush”. See, I have the quotation marks before the period because the game is not called “Gross Crush Period”; it’s called plain old “Gross Crush”. But American publications punctuate it thus: …this game we call “Gross Crush.” Quotation marks after the period.* I hate that.

But more importantly, really, Katy Perry? (Yes, I’m about to critique a Katy Perry song.) ‘Teenage’ is a compound word. You know how to hyphenate a compound word?** Between the two words that make it up.***

You sing:

You

Make me

Feel like I’m living a tee-

Nage

Dream

A girl who is 13 to 19 years old is not a tee/nager. She’s a teen/ager.

Ugh, and there’s a house in my neighborhood where the Bailey family lives. They have a sign out front:

The Bailey’s House

I mean, come ON. That sign clearly states that one person lives in that house, and that person calls himself The Bailey!

Who’s with me? Want to share your favorite grammar peeve?

P.S. I’m filing this one under Ask the Avid Bruxist. Nobody asked, but I really think y’all**** should have.

*Sentence fragment

**Missing helping verb ‘do’

***Sentence fragment

****Variant of ‘you all’

Reader Margo asks

my friend says the economy is going to collapse and i should buy silver coins and hide them under my bed. but my bed is on the floor. what should i do?

The Avid Bruxist answers

No worries.  Here’s what you do:  purchase in equal amounts silver coins, gold bullion, euros, yen, yuan, pounds, and Kuwaiti dinars.  Send them to me. There is room under my bed.  You know my address.

That goes for all of you.