Pygmalion

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like.
Bernard Shaw

My sentiments, exactly. I've told this story a thousand times, but when I was in the 6th grade, I went into the spelling bee. Please note that I came to the US when I was in the 5th grade, and didn't attend most of the 5th grade for legal problems with the school district. I memorized probably about 80 % of the words on the list that was provided. That list, which went on for pages and pages, contained about 10 times more words than I had in my vocabulary back then. It was a long and mighty list. But I tried, and I didn't expect myself to win the spelling bee or anything, but I assumed I'd get far enough to hear "good job" from teachers and fellow students. It turned out that I flunked out on my first turn. It seems now intensely ironic, although I didn't know it then, because of what that word was. It was "demise." I tried to spell it as "dimise" and got it wrong. Who knew, that the word demise would have been my demise, at least for the spelling bee?

The English language is difficult, although worth the difficulty to learn. It's like learning "Hot Cross Buns" compared to learning a Chopin Nocturne. The Nocturne would be extremely difficult, but worth plenty more than learning "Hot Cross Buns" (which, by the way, is puzzling! What the heck is a hot cross bun... a bun that is hot and angry?). I don't know many languages. But Korean and Spanish, are written as they sound. English is not. And that whole universal pronounciation code alphabet thingamajiggy is even more difficult. When I first saw that conjoined "a" with "e" letter, I just backed out of learning that. Thankfully, I was a bright child and picked up the English language quickly.

Since my complete understanding of the English language I became cocky. It is one of my ultimate pet peeves to see horrific spelling and grammar usages. I probably fall victim of such errors more than frequently myself, but when I see someone write or speak English with bad grammar, it just disturbs me. It may be part of my anal (verging on OCD) personality, but I just can't stand it! I abhor it! One of my most conflicting self-battles is subject verb agreement. Especially since I am writing more complex compound sentences than ever before, it is hard to keep track of that. I am just so prone to saying, "one of the things that bother me are..." rather than using is. I've gotten much better at keeping my errors at bay since my last English class, where good grammar usage was emphasized. Still, I can't manage to grow tolerance for poor English use.

This disease, if you will, has gotten so severe that whenever I hear Clay Aiken's song, I get irritated. "If I was invisible..." he croons. I love Clay Aiken. He has the most dreamy voice! But that song... to me, it would live in endless infamy. Goddammit, it's a song, but it won't lose its meaning, if the songwriter used good grammar!

So I digress. (Hey it isn't be the first time.) I need to get this Pygmalion thing read by Tuesday morning, so I should get started on it sometime today. I just wrote my initial response about the play, based on the title, and the things I read off the back of the cover. Perhaps after Tuesday, I will have something more insightful to say... but for now, here's one quote that I'm excited to get to in the play:

Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf... you incarnate insult to the English language: I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba.

I think I'm gonna like this one.