I’m a Grammar Nazi poser. I think I’m a Grammar Nazi. I want to be one. I arrogantly assume the role of one too often in conversations, but the truth is I’m just a silly little poser in love with her dictionary and thesaurus.

That fact slapped me in the face last night as I ranted on about a letter someone wrote to Glenn Beck, which he dutifully read on-air, scolding him for improper past tense usage of the word “sneak.”

Now, I consider myself an educated, intelligent woman with a rather large vocabulary. I pride myself on proper pronunciation and word usage within a  conversation. Okay, let’s cut the the pious crap and get down to it: I’m arrogantly smug when I come up against a word I am sure is being mispronounced, misused or is just plain wrong. I may not correct you in front of everyone, but rest assured I will correct you at some point. And in the meantime, I will (sort of) do my best to hide my snickering behind a well-placed hand over my mouth. I am the Queen of Words. Do not mess with my domain.

Enter the word “sneaked.” Past tense of sneak. Past participle of sneak. The bane of my existence.

From the moment I first heard it (which, oddly enough, was not until I moved to the South) I snickered. Paleese people! Learn how to speak proper English. Everyone knows the past tense of sneak is snuck.

Well, apparently everyone forgot to notify AskOxford because they quite chide our American arses for changing their word and thus once again polluting the English Language. They insist that if ever we step foot in merry-old England we simply must not utter “snuck” or we will be exposed for the uneducated dolts we are. The word is “sneaked” thank you very much and we kindly ask you to stop butchering the language we created. It’s not called American, after all, is it? No, it’s called English (please note author’s tongue firmly planted in cheek).

I always thought the British to be a bit stuffy and persnickety when it comes to the English language anyway. I mean, really, these are the people who leave the “the” off of nouns like hospital and university, that can’t spell color, labor or flavor to save their lives and add “r”s onto the end of words like “law” which clearly don’t end in r. Anyone who does that must have serious language issues, don’t you think?

Well, I do. So I went in search of an expert who agreed with me. And I finally found one. Random House’s Maven explains that while the captious Brits are correct that it was not the original or once-correct past tense, “snuck” has snuck into the US lexicon and is today the widely accepted, and sometimes even preferred, past tense form. So there.

The origin of snuck seems to come from the deep South and was first viewed as the vocabulary of the uneducated. A fact I find quite hilarious considering that to me, “sneaked” sounds like the uneducated, preschool version. Of course, I am also the idiot who once severely chided a writer for peppering his script with the word “shooter” because it was “poor English,” and that he would have to “improve his vocabulary beyond the third grade level” if he ever hoped to sell a script. See?? Grammar Nazi poser, arrogance and all. Thank God that both the script submission and the critique were anonymous so neither of us had to suffer the embarrassment of revealing just exactly who the uneducated idiot was.

As I lay in bed last night mumbling curses at the writer of the Glen Beck letter who pulled back the curtain of my Grammar Nazi control booth exposing me for the poser I am and who was now robbing me of blissful sleep, I struggled to embrace this new word that had sneaked up on me….

Nope. Can’t do it. Sneaked still feels like I’m back in preschool.

Lord help me, I’m in vocabulary hell!

autochthonous

Yeah. Just try pronouncing that one without a pronunciation guide. I’ll give a huge prize to the person who can — Larry, you’re excluded. Your genious mind knows words only God has  pronounced correctly or used properly.

If you’ve never heard or seen this word before, take heart. I never had either (not that that’s really any consolation). It was the winning word from the 2004 national spelling bee.

Which means there are grade schoolers out there smarter and better spellers than us.

Now there’s a cheery thought with which to start your day.

au·toch·tho·nous (ô-tkth-ns) also au·toch·tho·nal (-th-nl) or au·toch·thon·ic (ôtk-thnk)
adj.

1. Originating where found; indigenous: autochthonous rocks; an autochthonous people; autochthonous folktales. See Synonyms at native.
2. Biology. Originating or formed in the place where found: an autochthonous blood clot.

This English lesson is courtesy Starbucks‘ post-consumer fiber sleeve on my vente chai, and made possible by Dictionary.com, my everything on The Internets.

how some words just look weird all of a sudden, even though you’ve been spelling them all your life?

As I was writing my last post, I kept getting jarred by the word "Spring". It just looks…. weird. I don’t know why. I’ve been spelling it since I old enough to… well, spell. So why does it suddenly look so—– weird?

Maybe if I write it enough it won’t look so weird anymore.

spring…. spring… SPRing… sprING…. springg-guh…

Nope. Still looks weird.

My sister says "dang" is a derivative of damn — and so is "darn" — so saying it is just as bad as saying "damn".

True?

I’d not heard that before. I like dang. I use it a lot. I use it when I’m mad and when I’m thunderstruck and when I’m frustrated. I only say damn on accident, when I’m so angry it slips out before I can edit myself. Its crazy how I can work hard to eliminate words from my vocabulary, but when my emotions take off, those words still end up coming out of my mouth.

Jesus said this phenomenon was natural. He said, "Listen, and take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up… what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It’s from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That’s what pollutes. " (Matt 15:10-11, 18-19)

The damn — and the dang — come from my heart. The difference is that one has particularly offensive meaning to me (damn) and the other doesn’t. But both offend my sister.

Cuss words. Odd things they are. We use them for both surprise and anger, amazement and disgust. Some words are more acceptable to use than others, and they change from city-to-city, culture-to-culture. Some words we use here are not cuss words, but say them in the UK and you’ll get dirty looks from the proper, and probably a few smacks on the head from the elderly. Some offend many, some offend only a few. And you never know which is which till its too late.

Crap, shit, dang, damn, f***, bloody…. Who determines these words and their meanings? Where did they originate and how?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we ought to say whatever we want regardless of who we offend because, after all, they’re just words, right? No, I’m not saying that at all. I think there are words that don’t need to be in the vocabulary of a follower of Christ. I just don’t know which ones they are.

Is it our heart that makes the determining factor as to which words we can say without polluting? Or is it the hearts of others?

I did my best to stop saying "dang" while Nina was here, but I found it very difficult to do. It has crept into my every day lexicon more than I thought possible. I know from my days overseas that it is important to watch your words, watch that what you say and how you say it (as well as what you do) not offend those in your host culture. The reasons are rooted in love, being all things to all people so that by all possible means some may be saved, making sure that nothing we consciously/willfully do would come between the people around us and the love of Christ we bring. As Paul says to the Roman church, "Don’t eat or say or do things that might interfere with the free exchange of love." (Rom 14:21)

But how do I know what offends and what doesn’t? How do I know what might interfere with the free exchange of love? I couldn’t have known that dang was offensive to my sister until she said something, and by then it was out there already. Fortunately she was gracious about it and patient with me as I stumbled over my words after that.

I don’t want to walk around fearful of creating offense. At the same time, I don’t want to live as if no one else matters, only me and what I find offensive or not. I like what Paul says about this in Romans 14.

Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. I’m convinced–Jesus convinced me!-that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it.   (vs. 13-14)

Earlier in the chapter he said, "What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters."

I have often wondered myself if God is offended when I say shit. I don’t know. But its really the gross-factor of the word that comes into play more than anything else. On the other hand, I think it does bother Him when I say "damn", because that very concept goes against His deeply passionate love for every person and living thing. That’s precisely why Jesus came – so that no one would be damned, so that mercy and grace would always prevail, even in death.

So…. what do I say when I’m caught off-guard, when I’m frustrated, flummoxed or angry? What words are acceptable to both God and man?