Today in an email message, someone wrote "the guy next to me's cell phone..." I think this is completely clear - unless you thought that "me's cell phone" meant "my cell phone," I suppose. This is another reason why we need to expand the use of parentheses.* Email and IM-ing and texting and all is conflating our written and spoken languages, but I wish I knew how to systematically study the question of under which conditions (emailing, talking, writing in a more formal setting) which constructions show up. A more liberal use of parentheses would save people the trouble of taking more care in composing their sentences, which may not happen anyway, which will lead to unclear communications and confusion. I should look up the etymology of "confusion."
*Oh, God, I'm going to be one of those nut jobs that get written up in language books for trying to promulgate weird shit.
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7 comments:
So how would you use parentheses in that construction, then? "The guy(next to me)'s cell phone"?
Have you seen those commercials where the women are complaining about the "Parentheses on their faces", i.e. the fine lines on either side of the mouth? Do you think that this means that everything these wrinkle- afflicted women (and men) say is in parentheses, or rather that their actual mouth is in parentheses? I like to dwell on the implications of either.
I'd have it "(The guy next to me)'s cell phone. But I wonder if there would ever be a clause at the beginning of that phrase that would itself necessitate a parenthesis after "guy." Ugh.
Shannon, let's rent a video camera and make a commercial about this!
It just occurred to me that when we lived together, we came up with hundreds of uses for a video camera over a given weekend. Hmmm.
Yes, and speaking of parent(hetical), I believe several involved a git-fiddle. Who knew such genius came with hah-fashion, huh Miss?
I agree we need more parentheses. Although I frequently fear I could be accused of parenthetical abuse. I'm a big fan. I suspect the ink printed on keys "9" and "0" will be among the first to fade away due to their overuse.
Maybe someone will impose a quota one day. Something like at least 1 parenthetical remark for every 5 sentences, minimum. Any less than that, and you're just not being expressive enough.
What's cool about "(The guy next to me)'s cell phone" (and probably a good way to argue for its use in the future) is how it looks like code, like computer code. I don't know much of anything about coding, but that usage makes the clause look like an object that one is modifying the whole of, which of course it is.
It's sort of a new way to think about hyphenating or dashing. Like: "That couch is very un(sit next to you)able."
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