Prepositions

Apparently, a preposition is a bad word to end a sentence with. I don’t know if that’s a grammatical rule you’re obligated to adhere to. There seem to be so many examples in literature which this rule doesn’t apply in. Or to. I suspect this is the kind of “rule” like the “rule” of never using the split infinitive in English because it’s not permitted in Latin, a language that’s impossible to use it in. I’m done with rules I have no use for. There are very few things I am adamant about. But there’s only so much nonsense up to which I will not stand.

Parts Of Speech

I’m sure there are many other parts of speech in the English language that could be subjected to the same analysis as prepositions. Adjectives and adverbs, for instance, are completely unnecessary, especially considering that literary scholars are always telling us that if you have strong nouns and verbs, qualifiers are superfluous. Articles, both definite and indefinite, seem to be redundant as well, if English speech usage in my neighbourhood is anything to go by. Nevertheless, I’m sure they serve a purpose. I will investigate. And if I ever find out what a gerund is, I’ll write another essay.

Pronunciation

Accents on foreign words—just spell them the way they sound. Don’t make us guess what that accent is supposed to do. How do you pronounce a “c” with some kind of accent on top of it? It’s pronounced “ch”? Then just stick an “h” next to the “c”; that can’t be difficult. And whatever is an upside-down question mark on the bottom of a “c” supposed to sound like? A French “e” sometimes has an accent that faces one way, sometimes another, and then, to confuse us, sometimes no accent at all. It’s no wonder the English language drops all accents once we steal words from other languages.

Place Names

Why do place names change spelling just because they’re in a different language? We can say “Paree” or “Roma”, probably relatively accurately, and I’m sure French people can say “London” instead of “Londres”, and Spaniards can say “New York” instead of “Nueva York”. The French city Nice may cause some confusion due to its meaning something else in English (and the fact it has no accents) but I’m sure we can adapt. And even a sad Canadian like me can figure out “Mongh-ray-al” instead of “Monn-tree-all”. Thank goodness for place names like “Lima” that everyone can say except those who can’t pronounce the letters “L”, “I”, “M”, and “A”.

Punctuation

Come on, people, are you really getting your knickers twisted about when you should use a dash instead of a semi-colon? I know the genius Kurt Vonnegut wrote repeatedly about not using semi-colons and then proceeded to use them, but I forgive him because, well, he’s the genius Kurt Vonnegut. Exclamation marks (or “points” as illiterates say; I mean, we don’t say “question points”, right?) should be used sparingly, of course. Periods, commas, and apostrophes should be self-explanatory and obvious, but you can’t be sure what people think. I don’t wish to discuss the confusion humans have created about the function of an ellipsis…

The Use Of Language

Finally, I used language the other night to make myself appealing to a young woman who was particularly attractive and intelligent and funny. I charmed, complimented, listened, cajoled, engaged. I showed how much I respected her as a woman and as a representative of the female sex. I bought her a couple of drinks, making it completely plain I expected nothing in return other than a few minutes of conversation. The fact she accepted the drinks told me she understood this (I think). She left the bar while I was in the bathroom, which proves to me that language is unnecessary and probably detrimental.

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Now that Bill has realized language is less and less important in his day-to-day life, he thought it was time to write about it. He has been published in Defenestration three previous times, thus proving that language is also unimportant to many other people. His comic noir novel, “Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep”, the second funniest novel ever written, was published in 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing, and is available on Amazon.