Colm O'Regan: Grammar Nazis! Don't bother reading this
Colm O'Regan: 'Not getting cross about the extra r in Chicargo: the sign of my greatest personal growth.'
Call it self-care, call it mellowing, call it ‘no one was listening anyway‘. But I'm trying not to get cross about unimportant things. I calmed down about apostrophes. Anyway, many of the ‘apostrastrophes’ you see in print are due to Autocorrect sticking its algorithmic oar in. And in Dutch they put it in a different place and English came from Dutch-ish so who’s to say what right is at any given time?
Now, I’m chilling out about mispronunciation. Not only is life too short but also, because like lots of seemingly banal things, there is often history buried in the way we get things wrong.
(I draw the line at people’s names. You should pronounce someone’s name right, as they own it. But no one ‘owns’ Chicargo).
Not getting cross about the extra r in Chicargo: the sign of my greatest personal growth. It used to make me fume in my young and callow days (About a week ago). “Chicago is written EVERYWHERE. You've just watched the Michael Jordan documentary. Why would you just insert the R?” I’d say silently. An article in The Overcast – a magazine in Newfoundland, another 'Chicargo' hotbed also asked that question and asked an expert. Dr. Philip Hiscock, an Associate Professor of Folklore speculated it could be that Chicago was a Native American word that went into French and then into English and the vowel sound in the 'cag' wasn't natural to English speakers so it started to slide into other forms. So you’re part of history, Chicargo-person. The prosecution withdraws its case.
There are lots of variations here. Chimley: is that from the Irish simléar? Was it just that we were sneaking in a bit of Irish to confuse the redcoats who were asking if there were pikes in the chimney? It was other way round. Simléar came from chimbley and chimbley came from people deciding it was easier to say Chimley than Chimney. And before you get annoyed about that, that’s how we got the word Pilgrim which originally should have been closer to ‘pirgrim’.
I think it’s because we see these retail giants as still being about people. So when we shop there, we’re shopping in someone’s shop. So call it Easonses if you want. As long as you go in and buy my books.
Speaking of whiches, after writing the Irish Mammies books I got the occasional irate email accusing me of bringing the language into disrepute with Irish-isms. They weren’t from monocle-wearing Tory peers. They were from Irish people who seemed ashamed of our variations. One woman hated that I had a book called ‘It’s Earlier ‘ Getting’. But Shakespeare wrote . So if it’s good enough for one of the greatest writers in the English language, then it’s also good enough for William Shakespeare.
It isn’t just old words. Somehow, thousands of us go to a chemist, look at the box on the shelf behind the counter and ask for the Sol-PH-adeine. There is no h there. Our brains have added it. Maybe we feel it looks right. Throughout history great civilisations have changed p to f which is why we have Fathers and not Paters. Or else the Solpadeine is so soluble it’s dissolved its own P. Either way there’s a story there somewhere.
So when someone asks for potatits and twenty Marlborits or a Trekkie calls it Star Trak while drinking an expresso in Chapelizard, and you start to see a pattren, don’t get cross. Get curious.
