The other day I was typing away on my word processor, thinking far faster than I could type, of course. I had all the stops pulled out so as to type as fast as possible. I had already learned that my computer didn't like some of my words, some of my spelling, some of my grammar, and some of the other stuff I was pecking into the page. To register its displeasure, it underlined with a squiggly line what it didn't like in green, or red. Sometimes it would underline punctuation marks, or spaces. On occasion it would underline an entire sentence in green or red, and I would have to start over. All this was fine, the kind of stuff you can get used to.
Then it happened. I was doing a piece on kids experimenting with physics, like trying to set a fahrt afire. That is the kind of thing kids do. When I typed fahrt, it underlined the word in red, indicating, I guess, that it thought the word is misspelled. I misspelled the word intentionally, as modern day v-chips screen for four letter words, like fahrt, and restrict access to kids. Doing a kids piece on fahrts, and how to set fahrts afire is not of much value if kids can't read it. They might even burn themselves quite badly without expert guidance. In this case, they can't even find the proper instruction because the v-chip gets there first. So you have to misspell four letter words, especially those starting with F. My processor is a lot faster than I am at catching these errors, but I am getting a lot smarter.
Then I came to a critical point of demarcation while fahrting, and decided to call it outputt, with two Ts. Each time I spaced after the word, outputt, Microsoft Mama automatically changed the spelling back to output. It didn't ask me if I wanted to misspell output. It didn't underline outputt, so I could see the angry mama, it just changed it back to output. I was enraged. I wanted to misspell output as outputt, as this conveyed my message far more clearly. The simplest message was a fahrt as outputt. In desperation, I decided to confuse this mother of all word processors by placing a hyphen in the word, like out-putt. Ah haa! I was able to slip one right past Microsoft Mama, who never caught a whiff of it. I was still enraged, but I learned to confuse my word processor with hyphens, so I could do what I wanted, and what made the most sense without her confounded interference.
The whole scene was reminiscent of Gertrude, my own for-real mother. God rest her soul, she was an English teacher, music teacher, Spanish teacher, drama director, and a commerce and bookkeeping teacher to boot. She wanted her Is dotted and her Ts crossed. While we were growing up, she didn't let us get away with robust expressions or earthy English. As kids at breakfast, around the dinner table, or just hanging around the house, if we stumbled over the English, she never missed an opportunity to correct us. She didn't correct my spelling because she couldn't see the spelling, but she corrected everything else. She didn't bother to wait till I was through speaking. Like the word processor, she corrected everything she heard as soon as she heard it.
Bobby, she would say, Don't end a sentence with a preposition.
But Gertrude, I would say, prepositions are my favorite words to end sentences with.
Then I would add, Her and me went to -
Her and me never went anywhere, she would interrupt. She and I went is the correct grammatical form."
OK I would say, she and I didn't go nowhere.
Anywhere, she said.
I ain't gonna say nothing else.
Good, she said, Then I wont have to correct your sorry English. She actually never called our English sorry, because she didn't want us to feel bad (badly), but she just wouldn't tolerate the sorry English that came out of our mouths.
While she wouldn't tolerate sorry English in real life, she loved drama that was full of it. One of its forms in the 40s and 50s was the minstrel show. The above is my grammatical mama in full garb prepared to do her thing. A little blackface, a little costume, and a group of like minded folks, and she would put on a two-hour minstrel show. Rastus and Mandy were her favorites. One of her monologue/dialogs was from the front of the stage looking down at the audience:
Knock, knock, knock, knock (at the door).
Who dat? she would say in her female voice, looking down toward the audience.
Who dare? she replied in a male voice, looking up from the audience.
Who dat down dare who say who dat when I say who dare? she replied.
In the mid 1940s, there was almost no technology by today's standards. We were not far removed from silent movies, and radio was a sorry reality. All movies were black and white, and the riggin for changing a movie automatically from one reel of film to another had not been developed. When a movie required a film change, a series of dots appeared on the screen, the projector ran out of film through the mechanism, the projector was turned off, and the theater went dark. Then the lights came on, the old reel was removed from the machine, the next reel of film was installed on the machine, then the film was threaded through the mechanism, being sure that a loop of film of the proper length was placed between the projection lamp and the sound sensor so the sight and sound were synchronized, the lights were turned back off, and the projector and lamp were restarted. This change process often took several minutes, depending on the operator. We adjusted to the delay, and became impatient only when the operator was all thumbs. With excessive delays, the aggressive males in the audience would shout appropriate insults at the operator, like "don't quit your day job".
Voice recording machines were in their infancy. One of the earliest such machines was about the size of a Volkswagen, and weighed a hundred pounds. It recorded voice on a continuous magnetic wire, then erased and re-recorded on the same wire. The wire was only a few minutes in length when running. One day while the cousins were visiting, Fred brought one of these machines home from school. We played with the machine for a long time, telling short stories, and doing what kids do with a microphone and a new-fangled sound recording machine. The younger kids couldn't talk to the end of the wire, and the older kids couldn't say what they wanted to say in the same time.
After a period of practice, it came cousin Bobs turn with the voice-recording machine. We had a stopwatch so we could tell when the machine was running out of time, and a hand signal a few seconds before the machine ran out of recording wire. Cousin Bob took the microphone and we turned the machine on. Go, we said.
Once upon a time, there was a little black boy, and his name was Sambo. He lived with his family on the edge of the forest. One day he wandered down the path and deep into the forest. Soon he met a tiger.
Hi there, little boy, said the tiger, What is your name?
My name is Sambo, said the little boy.
Where are you going, said the tiger.
I am going for a walk. It is such a nice day. Would you like to walk with me, asked Sambo?
No I wouldn't. I think I'm gonna eat you, said the tiger.
Oh, please, mister tiger." said Sambo, "Don't eat me today, and I will give you my nice hat.
Alright, said the tiger. If you will give me your pretty hat, I wont eat you today
So little black Sambo took off his hat and gave it to the tiger.
The tiger was so proud that he danced around in circles wearing little Sambo's hat.
Then the tiger eat the child.
That is what cousin Bob said in his haste to finish the story before the machine ran out of wire. All the kids thought the surprise ending was hilarious, and completely overlooked the sorry English. Had Microsoft Mama heard Bob's English, she would have pulled the plug from the wall, then advised him that a story in past tense is The tiger ate the child. In spite of the sorry English, nobody was as sorry as little black Sambo, when Cousin Bob ran out of recording wire.
