Newsletter – June 20, 2025
PHOTO CREDIT: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl
Grammar Girl has been in my podcast feed for about a dozen years and I always learn something new and interesting from her. She feels like a friend that lives in my pocket just to tell me stuff about the English Language.
Last week she interviewed an expert on gestures and how they play a role in communication, including differences among cultures. Italians, for example, tend to gesture from the shoulder all the way down the arm, using plenty of space in front of them and to the sides. Germans, on the other hand [no pun intended], use their arms from the elbows when they talk, and their gestures are just to the front.
As a result, we tend to think that Italians use more gestures while Germans use less. Turns out that their gesture count was the same, but the style of gesture gives the impression of more.
Mignon Fogarty, the actual name of Grammar Girl, also has a unique segment she calls the “familect.” That’s a portmanteau—or mash-up—of “family” and “dialect” indicating a term that your family understands but others would not.
My younger brother created such a familect when he was learning to talk, enthusiastically shouting “wrench ryes” when Mom pulled the french fries out of the oven. We fondly called them wrench ryes for years afterwards.
My daughter was the source of what I’ll call a familect adjacent story.
She was in the fourth grade and had joined the Spell Bowl team—different from a spelling bee because every member contributes to the success of the team.
One day when I came home from work, she was sitting at the kitchen counter going over her list of words while Debbie prepared dinner. One word was really stumping her: bureaucracy.
I’d picked up many different techniques for memorization so I studied the letters and came up with this sentence: Big Ugly Red Elephants Are Under Cars, Reading And Cooking Yams. Our daughter was thrilled, Debbie told me to write it down before I forget, and I was the hero of the moment!
Fast forward several months to an elementary school gym where about twenty Spell Bowl teams were competing for the regional championship. Each round, another set of students sat with their proctors at desks spread across the gym floor and when the speaker carefully announced each word, the students wrote it on a piece of paper in front of them. The proctors confirmed each correct word and points were added to the team’s score. Six one-point words, and one two-point bonus word.
When it was our daughter’s turn, the bonus word was—I kid you not—bureaucracy.
She spun around in her chair and spied us in the bleachers on the other side of the gym. Her expression said “I GOT this!” Her proctor quickly instructed her to face front as my wife and I grinned and quietly recited my sentence: Big Ugly Red Elephants Are Under Cars, Reading And Cooking Yams.
The team didn’t win a trophy, but our daughter got a perfect score on all her words and practically knocked us down with hugs afterwards.
We went out for ice cream to celebrate.
TTFN
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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles
Eric Margerum 