March 4 was National Grammar Day, an occasion that prompted thoughtful essays and discussions about grammar, as well as a Tweeted Haiku Contest, for which Martha served a judge. Arika Okrent, author of In The Land of Invented Languages, took the prize with this one: “I am an error/ And I will never reveal myself/ After you press send.” Actually, that tweet became a self-fulfilling prophecy, because she soon followed up with an apt correction: Make that “send”. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “National Grammar Day”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. And if you’re a grammar enthusiast, then March 4th is the holiday for you.
It’s the date that many people celebrate as National Grammar Day.
And Grant, you and I know about the National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest.
Tweeted Haiku Contest. Yes, we do.
In fact, we’ve been judges.
Yeah, I was the judge last year. You judged this year. Was there anything good?
Oh, there was some great stuff.
The challenge, of course, is to write something compelling about grammar in just 17 syllables.
And I have to say, I really love the winning entry all the judges did.
It was by Erica Okrant.
Oh, we know her.
Yeah, yeah.
She happens to be a linguist, and she’s the author of that wonderful book called In the Land of Invented Languages.
In fact, she actually speaks Klingon.
Oh, very good.
If she raises a child speaking only Klingon, then even better.
But for this contest, she tweeted a poem that crystallizes a familiar moment for all of us.
It went like this.
I am an error and I will reveal myself after you press send.
Isn’t that great?
And the genius part about this was that afterwards she realized that she forgot to put the word send in quotation marks.
So she had to tweet again and tweet a correction that said, make that quote unquote send.
And it became this self-fulfilling haiku.
She says she didn’t mean to do it.
So even though we’ve missed National Grammar Day this year, next year people should look for this haiku contest.
Yes, definitely.
Well, if you’d like to talk about any aspect of language, call us 877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
