Mary Mary Quite Grammary

 A few days past, in this post, I mentioned consulting Mary with a bit of a grammar puzzle. It wouldn't be the first time.

Mary is somewhat older than I and was a proper student and teacher of English. I assume that English was her main university subject, but I've not really asked. She taught the subject when grammar was still a formal part of the curriculum.

I studied geography and taught that subject exclusively for ten years. It was in my eleventh year of teaching that enrollment trends eventuated in me teaching English. I was miffed at first to have to teach outside of my subject area, but I learned to really like it as the years went by. There were six such years before I found myself exclusively teaching geography again. Truth be told, I think I was a better teacher of English than geography — at least in some respects.

When I began to teach the subject in the early eighties, the formal teaching of grammar was no longer in vogue. Nevertheless, I did try to teach myself the basics or at least drum what I already knew deeper into my brain. I hope that my appreciation of grammar and writing shows up, at least a little bit, here on my odd, little blog. I do take a lot of liberties in my writing style for effect, and because we are not composing formal essays with rigid rules, I feel at peace doing that.

It's not that we totally neglected grammar back then, but it was taught more incidentally and, supposedly, in context as needs required.

I had checklists for students, in several classes, that they would keep in a writing folder. If I noticed a sentence fragment, for example, I could tick it off on the checklist (or have them do it). The problem could then be addressed in some way. Yes, I actually stood at the blackboard going over certain things, such as sentence fragments, when the occasion warranted. And I quite enjoyed reprimanding them for committing the dreaded comma splice error.

Getting back to Mary, she knows her stuff much better than I do, and when I struggle over the right way to write something, I have been known to turn to her, as I did in this case:

Here is two seconds of her being cute, blast her royal furriness. (I want to say are two seconds, but I think is is correct as it is one clip that is two seconds long. Are you there Mary? Note: Mary is my grammar guru.)

Indeed, Mary was there and disagreed with me:

I would use the plural, as 'clip' is only understood in that sentence, making the 'is' sound wrong. Go with the flow, as they say. Whatever you use, actually, would not be a catastrophic mistake.

So there you have it. I agree that the 'is' doesn't sound right, which is why I asked. While I accept Mary's verdict, I also consider that 'I' often sounds right when 'me' would be grammatically correct, and I still wonder, just a little bit. 'Lay' is another word that tends to sound appropriate to our ears when 'lie' would be the proper usage. But the verdict is in, and abide by it, I must.

I have told Mary that although Grammar Girl is, quite famously, taken that Grammar Granny isn't.