March 18, 2011

Saint Patrick’s was sufficiently festive. Still wearing my green shirt at the crack of dawn.

I wish people– especially at Asheville High-- would stop telling students that English is an ever-changing language. Of course it is, but something in their half-informed exposition encourages the belief that an error is not an error but a rightful efflorescence on the great tree of language. The rules of grammar are fast, binding, objective, and do not admit of adaptation, until-- with the suddenness of the emergence of a biological species– they are different. It is not someone saying ignorantly “between you and I” or “irregardless” or “it’s tail is wagging” which makes this change. These are marks of the rube, and only that. Errors are still errors though the language changes between sunset and dawn. From somewhere comes the idea that English is governed by a snooty academy laying down high-falutin’ laws from an ivory tower in, probably, Boston. We ourselves have made the rules I am anxious to protect at least until their time is done. No grammarian ever imposes anything on our language. The rules are made by the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, to whom the grammarian listens with unusually attentive ears. The grammarian reminds the B and the B and the C of the rules they made for themselves. Maybe the grammarian is the last to go along with it–and he should be– when the language changes, repeating until the very turning, “Are you sure this is what you want?” Some time ago people started saying “Aren’t I?” when that was clearly “wrong.” Wrong or not, it is indispensable. “Am I not” is too Bronte, and “amn’t I?” simply cannot be said. That is a change that is a change, and I imagine it was hard won. “Ain’t I?” was a mark of the upper classes at the end of the 18th century. It isn’t now. But, God, I’d love to hear the occasional “am I not?” to remind me of Edens lost.

Got back to Italian after giving my head a rest. Looking at text again I realize some of the bloopers I committed in Rome. I asked the desk clerk to get me a taxi for nine o’clock. I see now that what I actually said was “ please get me a taxi for the grandmother.”

Vigorous day. Notable workout at the Y, then practically the whole bright day spent gardening. The temperature hit 70, and I dug out the north terrace, facing Zach’s, from under its tangle of ivy and greenbrier. Bought blue and deeper blue veronica to cover the shovel wounds, and yellow.. . . something to fill the space between hibiscuses. At the moment my most precious possession is the patch of bloodroot–all blooming–on the back terrace. It’s twice the size it was last year, and I praise God. When I was in a heat to move I didn’t realize how attached I am-- not to this house, but-- to my garden. If I bought property with a solid acre of bloodroot I’d still worry about the welfare of this little patch. Was someone keeping it clear? Did someone take care to watch its changes every day, and several times a day, and its thin spears of bud slumbering by moonlight?

Towhee twittering in my rose tangle. Maude on the desk, watching him with onyx eyes.