Yes! I Want to Believe

[georginasand]

"When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.”  ~Erma Bombeck

This should be a letter about the x-files movie and how rather astoundingly (against all odds) good it was. It was like the Battle of Agincourt in movie form and the maybe 20 of us in the movie theater were the poor British and the throngs of A Dark Knight fans were those dastardly French (no offense, guys... no, not you, I meant the French).  That letter, however, has already been written (Hi, Merry) and will probably be written again and again in all the fringes of the internet, so I am going to hold off... for now.

A 180 degree change of subject...go.

So my grandmother, who is entirely responsible for a) my grammar being as good as it is and b) that most thoughts file through my brain before they come out my mouth, just to check. When I was little she crusaded against my saying "I am good" which I resisted if only because "I am well" sounded like I had recovered from elephantitis to my eight- year old mind and it is technically correct, "I am" wants an adjective not an adverb. Then she moved on to rally against the demons that are "like" and "um." At one point I even stopped using "like" as a comparative and stopped saying umbrella. Her most recent battle is "yes" vs. "yeah," but I maintain that some situations some don't require a full "yes." Even studying French, I quickly learned to shorten the already monosyllabic "oui" to the more casual "ouay."

But this woman is taking me to Europe for 10 days, so I can argue but in the end I should probably obey. As I am practicing saying yes, I have noticed how much more effort it takes, not just the effort of breaking a habit set like grape juice in chalice cloth, but the extra effort it requires to merely pronounce the extra consonant. "Yeah" ends with such an open sound, if punctuation really mimicked spoken syntax it every "yeah" would be followed by ellipses. But a "yes." If you start a "yes" you have to finish it, or you end up hissing like a goon. A yes has to be decided, definite, finished. You have to commit to it, whereas a "yeah" is so much more nonchalant because you don't have to move to stop it, you just run out of breath to fuel the sound.

Not sure if that made much sense, hope it did. Yeah Yes.
I remain,
Georgie

Postscript: In a fit of irony, most of the quotes I found while searching for one to head this letter commented on how easy it is to say "yes", rather than to say no, which may fly in the face of my entire theory since "no" ends in an open vowel sound similar to "yeah."
G.S.

Comments

[merrycaepa.livejournal.com]

I love your grandmother.

You'd better get me a T-shirt in Europe. Or something. Give it to my parents and hopefully they won't lose it whilst I'm gone...

...my, that's depressing.

Saw it AGAIN - this time, with my parents. I don't think they were quite as impressed, but the movie was pretty much a love letter to the fans. And they really aren't fans, so.

Ah, well...

Anyway. Your grandmother rocks my socks.

[merrycaepa.livejournal.com]

I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN, LIKE, DAYS.

UPDATE OR SOMETHING. I'M IN LEE WITHDRAWAL.

(THIS TURKEY THING IS GOING TO BE REALLY HARD, ISN'T IT?)