Hey, I got a response!

A few weeks ago I wrote against Dick Cavett's wildly popular NYT article about Sarah Palin and her bad grammar. It reeked of class warfare, specifically Dick Cavett of the upper class against Sarah Palin of the lower class. Though, I did not deny that Sarah Palin didn't really answer questions, which scores her no points in my book.

I specifically took issue with, ironically, the grammar in Dick Cavett's column. If he's so high-and-mighty on grammar, shouldn't his column be Strunk and White clean? Not so! Says the new Strunk and White: Patricia O' Connor.

The grammar issue in question was this sentence above all: May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks?

To me, this looked like a declarative with a question mark. For example, on work emails I get these all the time, mostly from very-higher ups:

"This is being handled?" "I'm copying the right person on this?" (Instead of "Is this being handled?" "Am I copying the right person on this?")

Well, I wanted to ask her about what I saw as a lazy, passive question (on work emails) but I used Dick Cavett's quote, and here's what she said (note the very correct "Hi comma Wells:"



Hi, Wells,

In his Op-Ed piece for the Times, Dick Cavett wanted to say that he found Sarah Palin attractive, but he didn't want to come right out and say it. So he used two evasive constructions.

(1) He framed his first comment in the form of a question, beginning "May I confess that ...." This is a way of sneaking in a remark you're afraid might make you look bad. In essence, you're asking the reader's permission beforehand.

(2) He used a roundabout, double negative construction in his second comment: "not uncomely." In other words, "comely." Another way of evading a direct statement.

There's nothing grammatically wrong with either of these methods. But they're both intended to let you say something indirectly. In this case, Cavett used the coy phraseology to convey humor.

Pat O'Conner

So, what it comes down to is what I find to be funny or not funny. Dick Cavett: not funny, except as I said on the "Homer the Clown" episode. His humor probably appeals to the older demo that usually reads the NYT, not the Onion reading, Ali G show watching, Family Guy revering age.

But I have a taste for older humor too: I think that Garrison Keillor has a schtick that works (tho the show is too long) and I still smile remembering the antics of the late Victor Borge. Even Peter Schickele, who my parents listed to all the time, had some great riffs about big band and classical, which is NOT EXACTLY a minefield of laughs.

To me, Dick Cavett's blog postings are about as funny as Leno, without the band, studio laughs, or the economy of words. They're kind of vacuous.

But he did make me feel sorry, in his latest column, for poor Richard Widmark. The moral of Mr. Widmark's life is, if (IN A MOVIE) you push an invalid in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs, you will always be remembered for doing that. Nevermind the rest of the ouvre! You, sir, are a nasty individual.