danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

[The following was written last August.  I haven't gotten around to publishing it until now.]

Have you ever been unsure whether to use “I” or “me”?  These pronouns, in particular, are frequent targets of hypercorrection.  As children, we were scolded when we asked, “Mommy, can Billy and me go to the park?”  “May Billy and I go to the park”, came the correction.  Consequently, you may often hear people say, “And then the police came and arrested Billy and I”.  By then, however, our mothers are not there to tell us that we should have said “Billy and me”.

People get confused about whether to use “I” or “me” because they often cannot distinguish between a subject and an object.  In my first example above, “Billy and I” are the subjects; in my second example, “the police” is the subject, and “Billy and me” are the objects.  I know this isn’t the National Grammar Rodeo, but I bring it up because my concept of language has completely changed in the last two years.  Some of the change is attributable to my getting a degree in English.  For the most part, however, the change came about because I wanted to learn German.

German does something that English, by and large, does not: it declines.  Declension is a feature of some languages that alters nouns, pronouns, and adjectives to indicate gender, possession, number, and case (that is, direct- or indirect object).  As I showed above, “I” and “me” are merely different versions of the same concept, like “she” and “her”, “he” and “him”, and their possessive equivalents, “hers” and “his”.  Those pronouns are also among the few English words that demonstrate gender.  English also declines by adding an “s” or “es” to the end of most nouns to change their number.  But that is relatively simple, and, for the most part, marks the end of English declension.  German, on the other hand, declines in every way imaginable, and it is a nightmare.

In English, we take for granted that the articles “a” (or “an”) and “the” are all we need to know.  Germans have these articles, too, of course, but, like many languages that distinguish gender, they are different for masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns:  der Baum (the tree) is masculine; die Lilie (the lily) is feminine; and, oddly, das Mädchen (the girl) is neuter.  In German, the gender of a word seems to have little relation to its concept, and aside from the article, no indication of gender is given, unlike Spanish, for instance, where a word ending in “o” is likely masculine, and so on.  With German, you must learn the article with the word.  But, those articles you see above only count when the word is used in the nominative case.  If, for example, “der Baum” is not used as the subject of a sentence, but as the direct object, it becomes “den Baum”.  If the tree is the indirect object, it becomes “dem Baum”.  And the feminine “die Lilie”, when used as an indirect object, becomes “der Lilie”.  In order to know, then, that the lily is a feminine noun and not masculine, you have to understand how the sentence functions.  “Das Mädchen”, which we know is neuter, uses the same article as a masculine noun in the dative case, and becomes “dem Mädchen”.

Should you wish to indicate that you possess something–let’s say a tree–in English, you need only say “my”, no matter how the sentence is structured: “My tree is tall” (subject); “I climbed my tree” (direct object); “I gave some water to my tree” (indirect object).  Even when indicating that the tree possesses something, we still use “my”: “I climbed up to my tree’s highest bough”.  In German, those examples become, in order, “mein Baum”, “meinen Baum”, “meinem Baum”, and “meines Baum”.  All four of those mean “my tree” in English.

In English, “you” is always “you”, whether used as the subject, direct- or indirect object.  In German, “du” is the subject version of “you”: “You are my friend”.  “Dich” is the direct object version of “you”: “I love you” = “Ich liebe dich”.  “Dir” is the dative version of “you” used as an indirect object.

Don’t get me started on the adjective endings.

So, next time you meet a fluent German speaker, congratulate him.  He understands the functions of language way better than you.

Filed under: Musings, School on January 15th, 2010 | No Comments »

I am not a graphic designer, nor will I ever be, but I do love me some fonts.  I have for a long time – at least since I first got a computer in the mid-1990s.  You might not think so, but fonts and typefaces have militant advocates and critics.  On Flickr, for example, there is a group dedicated exclusively to mocking a font called Comic Sans.  On the other hand, I saw a film this year that was all about Helvetica.  I had never really given much thought to Helvetica, but the movie made me a big fan.  It’s a fine font.

In the New York Times today, Alice Rawsthorne writes about the use of anachronistic fonts in films and television.  She quotes a typography designer (that’s a real job?) who points out how odd it is that films in which enormous efforts are made to ensure accuracy in wardrobe and set design do not go to the same lengths to ensure typefaces that appear on screen are period-appropriate.  I have never looked for this when watching a movie, but, as I am constantly annoyed by anachronistic music in films (particularly diagetic music), I can’t deny anyone else the right to find font abuse upsetting.

Filed under: Musings on November 15th, 2009 | No Comments »

Everyone in America was apparently glued to the television last Thursday, when it appeared that a young boy had been carried aloft by a weather balloon that proceeded to float across eastern Colorado and land in the middle of a farm.  Admittedly, it makes for a dramatic story, particularly when it was accompanied by live video.  As the balloon drifted toward high-voltage power lines, I can understand how so many would feel so much anxiety for the safety of that boy.

We know now, however, that it was a hoax perpetrated by the child’s whore parents, in a shameful effort to attract attention they could parlay into a “reality” television deal.

Hearing about this fraud instantly brought a host of questions to mind.  Did these people think they were going to get away with it?  Do they have any concept of morality?  Does it bother them that, across the country last week, millions of genuinely anxious people wasted millions of honest prayers?  Is this how far our society has degenerated?

The answers to the first three questions are: apparently; apparently not; and I don’t know.  I was tempted to believe that the answer to the last question was a resounding yes – that our society has, in fact, been driven to the point of moral bankruptcy in the short span of our living memory.

Then yesterday Wikipedia stepped forward unexpectedly to challenge my perceptions.  It reaffirmed that we are indeed living in an age of depravity, but it moved the date of our moral degradation back nearly three hundred years, to 1726, to be precise.  In that year, a woman from Surry named Mary Toft perpetrated a hoax that seems so obviously unbelievable, so completely ridiculous, that it is hard to believe anyone could have fallen for it.  And yet people did, and some paid dearly for it.

Mary Toft suffered a miscarriage.  That much is true, and that much is surely worthy of pity.  But Mary Toft took things to another level.  A totally crazy level.  There’s no polite way to tell what she did, but, put simply, she cut up some rabbits and stuck them in her hoo-hoo, and then claimed to give birth to rabbits.  Some doctors heard of this and went to see her, and when they pulled more parts of rabbits from her hoo-hoo, they thought, “hey, this lady’s full of bunny babies!”  Now, you and I would immediately suspect something was amiss, because we know that there just wasn’t enough time since her miscarriage to carry rabbits to full term.  Also, people cannot give birth to rabbits.  But some people believed her.  In fact, some people had the hilariously ignorant idea that a woman could give birth to whatever she had been around.  So, let a cat sleep on your bed, and you’re going to deliver a kitten baby.  When the hoax was discovered (and I can’t believe it took as long as it did), the reputation of a prominent doctor was ruined, and the medical profession in general suffered.

So, let us not grieve for our lately-departed sense of decency; it has been dead for a long time.

UPDATE – 23 December 2009: The parents of “Balloon Boy” (a sort-of inaccurate name) were sentenced to time in jail today, and prohibited from profiting from their story for four years.

Filed under: Current Events, History, Musings on October 21st, 2009 | No Comments »

On January 31, 1988, I watched the pilot episode of a television program called The Wonder Years.  Though the show was set in the late 1960s, I related to it because I was about the same age as the main character.  As the series began, Kevin Arnold was starting junior high; so was I -  in real life.  Through subsequent seasons, the show dealt with many topics relevant to my (or any young man’s) life.  But one theme of The Wonder Years was always outside the realm of my experience: Kevin Arnold’s difficult relationship with his father.  Many episodes dealt with this topic, and it always made me simultaneously uncomfortable and grateful.  I felt uncomfortable because the tension seemed so real, and I knew that many fathers and sons had strained relations.  I felt grateful because I did not.  And though my life has certainly not been free of regret, and though “I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought / And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste”, I have never had to regret any aspect of my relationship with my father.  We have always got along well.

So, as I sat with my father on a blanket under the open sky last Saturday night, watching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play “Racing in the Street”, I felt like things couldn’t get better.

Sure, it looked like the sky might open up any time and unleash a raging storm.   But aside from a few sprinkles here and there, the weather held out.  And, sure, I was a little worried about how bad our view would be way back on the lawn, but that actually turned out great, too.  And, if $56 per ticket seems expensive, we did get three solid hours–twenty-seven songs–of rock.

Miriam and I met my dad at my Uncle Tom’s apartment in Tampa.  It could not have been more conveniently located.  We ate an early dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, which was enjoyable and new to me.  We made it to the Florida State Fairgrounds before six o’clock, but they didn’t open the gate for a little while after that.  We weren’t too far back in the line at the gate, but there were still enough people that I was slightly nervous about getting a decent spot on the lawn.  Plus, while were were standing there, the sky, which had spent the earlier part of the day raining, then the afternoon threatening more, began doing just that.  It didn’t last, though, and by the time we reached the grass we were hopeful.  Though there was a mad dash for the closest seats on the lawn, we managed to find a great spot.

As I expected, “Badlands” opened the show, but for the next two songs I was nervous.  Springsteen’s voice was shot.  It wasn’t that he couldn’t sing in tune; he couldn’t sing.  I honestly expected him to call the show off.  But he drank some sort of hot beverage, saying, “I’ll be better in a few songs”. Sure enough, he was.  By the time he got to “Seeds” his voice was strong.  In the request portion of the show, which has become a fixture of the last couple tours, Bruce grabbed just about every sign from the pit.  I saw some fools asking for “Ramrod” and “I’m a Rocker”.  Fools.  I did see someone after my own heart requesting “Drive All Night”, though, of course, we didn’t get it.  What we did get was “Growing Up”, requested by a child in the front row, “All or Nothing at All” which has only been played six times ever, and “Jole Blon” which hasn’t been played since 1981.  So, we did okay, especially considering that a few nights later he played “Ramrod”.

I was hoping to hear some classic songs I had not yet heard live, and I got them, including, in the encore, “Rosalita”.  After “American Land”, I figured the show was over.  But the crowd was so frantic that he busted out “Bobby Jean” and “Dancing in the Dark”, then, finally, “Hungry Heart”.  The place was out of control, and I didn’t think he would try and top it, so we grabbed our blanket and were making our way out when the noise got even louder.  Something was happening on stage that we couldn’t see.  Then we heard Bruce grab the mic and say, “I guess we forgot one”, before the opening strains of “Thunder Road”.  It was incredible.

Still, in a show which included so many highlights (including an enthusiastic version of–of all things–Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More”, which, as you know, is my personal anthem), perhaps the best single performance of the night was an astonishing version of “Johnny 99″.  It turned into a rollicking railroad reel with dueling guitar solos and showboating.  It was thrilling.

Nevertheless, ages and ages hence, when I think back on that night, I’ll most fondly remember hearing “Racing in the Street” while seated on a blanket with my father under the open sky.

Filed under: Family, Musings, Nostalgia, Popular Music, Television on September 20th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

“Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N.S., 1709; and his initiation into the Christian Church was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary’s parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth”.

So begins James Boswell’s Life of Johnson, perhaps the most significant biography written in English.  Its significance is generally thought to arise from Boswell’s skills as a writer, his attention to detail, and his honest portrayal of a man with whom he was an intimate acquaintance.  Boswell is justly credited on all those counts.  But it doesn’t hurt that James Boswell’s closest friend–and the subject of his great biography–was Samuel Johnson, the most brilliant and interesting man to ever write in our language.

Samuel Johnson was a large, awkward man.  His face and body were scarred, and he suffered frequent tics and convulsions.  He was awful to look upon, but everyone wanted to be in his company.  In her diary, Frances Burney wrote about a dinner party she attended on “the most consequential day” of her life – when she was introduced to Johnson:

Soon after we were seated, this great man entered.  I have so true a veneration for him, that the very sight of him inspires me with delight and reverence, notwithstanding the cruel infirmities to which he is subject; for he has almost perpetual convulsive movements, either of his hands, lips, feet, or knees, and sometimes all together.

Samuel Johnson wasn’t guaranteed success by right of birth.  His family wasn’t rich or titled.  His father was a downwardly-mobile bookseller.  Had Michael Johnson been a cobbler or a wheelwright, things might have turned out very differently.  But Samuel Johnson had access to books, and that made all the difference.  He attended college for a while, but when his family could no longer afford it, he withdrew without receiving his degree.  He suffered bouts of illness in the years that followed, and several of his friends and loved ones died.  He found no profitable employment.  Then, in his late twenties, he moved to London, which in those days was the center of the world.  Johnson made it on the street there as a writer, selling whatever he could.  He made connections, published some poetry, composed a play, and wrote regularly for The Gentleman’s Magazine, where his work drew notice.  Then he wrote a dictionary.

Today, it is hard for us to imagine a world without a dictionary.  In Johnson’s day there were several books of words vaguely resembling dictionaries, but they were laughably inadequate, seldom provided definitions, and often included only a small number of entries.  There was a real and obvious need for a true dictionary that would attempt to describe the English language as it was actually used.  Johnson took up the task of making one, claiming he could do it in three years.  It took him three times that, but in 1755, his Dictionary of the English Language was published.  It is an amazing thing to behold, and an astonishing achievement for one man.  The book cost more to print than Johnson was paid to write it.

In the years to come Johnson would write a series of periodical essays called The Rambler, then The Adventurer, then The Idler.  In these essays, Johnson discusses almost every topic imaginable, in language that is brilliant and touching.  Consider The Rambler, No. 47, in which he distinguishes between “passions of the mind” like fear, desire, or ambition–which he claims have their own cures–and sorrow, for which

there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often occasioned by accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have lost or changed their existence; it requires what it cannot hope, that the laws of the universe should be repealed; that the dead should return, or the past should be recalled. [...]

Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, an incessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, a tormenting and harassing want of some enjoyment or possession which we have lost, which no endeavours can possibly regain.

“Sorrow”, writes Johnson, “is a kind of rust of the soul”.

Johnson wrote during a period in which new forms of literature were coming into prominence, when the number of literate people was growing exponentially, and when the meaning of literacy itself was changing.  No longer would a knowledge of the classics–of Homer and Virgil–be required, nor would an understanding of Greek and Latin.  Johnson knew all the classical writers, and he understood their languages.  But, as we see from his praise of Burney’s Evelina, he knew that the audience was changing.  His Dictionary, his Lives of the Poets, his Rasselas, his Rambler, are all works for a new age.

Samuel Johnson was born three hundred years ago today.  Making his acquaintance changed my life.

Filed under: Literature and Books, Musings, Special Occasions on September 18th, 2009 | No Comments »