Keep Your Word (To Yourself) Please

It’s always embarrassing to a writer to make a grammatical error in an article, especially when you have to wait a month to explain that you knew better and that it was simply an oversight. But it’s even more embarrassing to bring it up at all, since the reader probably doesn’t care or has already sized you up as a semi-illiterate. I’m not even going to tell you what it was, but if you find it, Eddie will buy you a beer. In fact, if Eddie finds it, I’ll buy him one. (Editor’s note: Don’t believe everything Bob says!)

Speaking of beer, which I did in that article, my lovely wife’s remark, after reading it, was, “Anybody reading that who doesn’t know you will think you’re an alcoholic.” I replied, “I don’t think so,” although I later reflected that most of the male readers of Charleston’s Free Time probably have had very similar beer-related experiences during their formative years (which for me were ages 16-53). And I’ll bet that most of them are not alcoholics. In fact, Eddie said he did a quasi-scientific survey of his male readers in 1997 by asking them what kind of beer they preferred with their cereal, and based on those results, only 44.3% appears to have had a significant problem, with 51% of that group reporting they sometimes skipped the cereal. So there!

But to be borderline serious for a minute, the man-beer relationship is simply an unofficial rite of passage for us guys. And if the Anheuser-Busch and Miller companies recognize this, why can’t everybody else? In fact, now when I think about my wife’s cautionary statement, I envision myself standing in front of a group of people as Jack Lemon did in “The Days of Wine and Roses,” except that they’re all men, and enunciating with great gravitas, “My name is Bob Coskrey and I’m a Guy.” The courageous admission is followed, of course, by slowly building applause and cheers.

Incidentally, I’d like to apologize for using the word “gravitas,” sine every self-important dufus within arm’s reach of a microphone is using it, context be damned, even those who still can’t pronounce “nuclear.” Why? Because they think it gives them—gravitas, I guess. But I just wanted to see how it felt to use it in an article. I don’t have the cajones to use it in conversation. And you’ll be happy to know that I really don’t feel too good at all after typing the word and can assure you I’ll never do it again. In fact, I just imagined myself standing in front of another group of people and confessing with an appropriate air of pathos, “My name is Bob Coskrey and I’m a Creep!”

Since I have brought up the subject of people speaking pretentiously, I’d like to mention a few examples that I find particularly nausea-provoking: First, people who like to end their sentences with “as it were.” The dictionary defines this phrase as: “as if it were so” and “in a manner of speaking.” Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not using any of those phrases, except maybe just as a sociological experiment the next time some guy in one of those monster pick-ups covered with Confederate flag decals, a gun rack and a baseball bat velcroed to his dashboard cuts me off in traffic, I’ll pull up alongside him and shout, “Hey, you, engine blockhead, you almost ran me off the road back there, as it were!”

Should I survive that, or more specifically, once I fully recover from the anal baseball batectomy, the next one I would never think about saying is “if you will” which the dictionary defines as meaning “if you wish to call it that.” Now, this was somewhat of a surprise because it seems to me that people seem to use this phrase interchangeably with “as it were.” In fact, I have just had an epiphany. Most of the social misfits who drag these bizarre word combinations into a conversation don’t even know what they mean, they simply like the way they sound. And if through divine intervention one of them found someone to marry, and on the honeymoon, he sensually implored, “Would you like to make love again, my dearest?” he would simply smile ignorantly, as she responded, “Oh, I’m sorry, my sweet, but I have a headache. Otherwise I would love to make love again—if you will.”

“Be that as it may.” This one doesn’t even appear in my dictionary, though it seems to mean something close to “nevertheless,” although even that word seems a little stilted to me, at least, in speaking. In fact, if anyone ever says, “be that as it may” to me, I don’t think I could continue the conversation. Maybe I’d just feign temporary deafness or say, “No comprende English,” and walk away shrugging my shoulders. Or if I felt confident enough, I might fight fire with fire and respond haughtily, “Alas, you presume too much, it simply may not be as that,” but with my luck, there would be a rapier-like counter-response beginning something like, “Inasmuch that you have revealed the crassness of your character, and if the truth be known…” and I’d have to just turn tail and run.

Certainly, the most egregious example of affected speaking I have ever heard of was some guy my wife knew through her job years ago who liked to pepper his sentences with “i.e.’s” (“that is”), i.e. (just kidding), “Oh, I did the usual things growing up in Charleston, i.e., joined the Carolina Yacht Club, spent the summer at your Sullivan’s Island home or at Camp St. Christopher, Blowing Rock in the fall, then back to Gaud School, i.e., before it merged with Porter to become Porter-Gaud, although I attended Porter too, military academy, i.e., before launching off to Exeter, i.e., Phillips Exeter Academy.” Had I been around this person, even for a few minutes, my mind would have constantly been filled with villainous thoughts, i.e., stapling his tongue to his nose, putting white-out in his coffee, or giving him a “Luca Brazzi” with a letter opener and an extension cord.

Lastly, since I’m on the subject of annoying words in general, I’d like the FCC to get off Howard Stern’s ass and really do something worthwhile by fining people for using the verb “vet,” which means “to subject to expert appraisal or correction; or to evaluate.” Of course, it’s not obscene, and frankly, I’d never even heard the word till recently, but it’s just used entirely too often, and something needs to be done about it right away. I think one of our military leaders in Iraq used it in a press conference and now all the politicians, miscellaneous pundits (damn, there’s another one), and even local news guys have made it a minor life goal to use it at least in every other paragraph just because they think it gives them an air of toughness, or to be more to the point, masks their “wimpitude.” Actually, I think it’s those “Neocon” people, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, etc., who are promoting the saturation bombing with this word, which, not insignificantly, has the additional attribute of being one syllable, so you-know-who can master it in a matter of days. But the be fair, Democrats have used ita s well, so maybe the liberal-minded PR people (the “Ad-libs”) should come up with a less irritating replacement. How about going “old school” with “evaluate,” which, of course, has the extra attribute of having four syllables, this guaranteeing it won’t be stolen by the other side.

In the meantime, you may rest at ease, as I will continue to be the eternal watchdog for pompous pontificators, dragging them out into the bright light of reason and good taste…well, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my beer swilling.