For some reason, big storms in the Pacific Northwest seem to happen on holidays. There was the Easter windstorm that happened sometime in the nineties. I was in the middle of cooking Easter dinner for company when the power went out. Bill and his pal, Alan, had gone to an auction and bought a wooden boat that had been damaged the previous winter when a snow-covered boathouse collapsed. They were rehabbing it in the friend’s side yard when the electricity went bye-bye. I called the friend’s house where his wife informed Bill, who was upside down, hanging by his ankles, working on the boat, about what had happened. He famously replied, “I don’t have any electricity in my pocket.”
In a state of absolute fury, I marched out to the backyard, grabbed our gas grill and fired it up and cooked the whole damned meal on that, including heating the water to wash the dishes afterwards. I think abject terror kept that grill running, because the rusted-out hulk never fired up again.
But back to storms. There’s the Columbus Day storm of 1962, the Thanksgiving Day Storm of 1983, the Inauguration Day Storm of 1983, and the Hanukkah Storm of 2006. That shut down power lines for close to a week. Everyone went to Bellevue Square Mall to charge their devices because the mall was the only place with power. The next year I asked for a generator for my birthday and got one. Then there was a mid-December, no-holiday snowstorm, that meant our pre-Christmas party ended up being held on New Year’s Eve. The year after that I asked for a snowplow for my birthday and got one of those, too.
This week we had a no-holiday windstorm. The power went out at 6 PM on Tuesday. Two days in it’s still out and likely to remain so for some time. Fortunately, we had zero damage, and that vintage generator from 2006 is out there plugging away—keeping us warm, the lights on, and the food in the fridge still cold. We’re now able to access the internet by using our cell phone hotspots, so we don’t have to go to the mall, we’re not out of business, and I’m still working.
Last night, when I called it quits on doing the copy-editing edit on The Girl From Devil’s Lake, the TV was off so I did something I’ve done far too seldom the last few years—I opened someone else’s book—a Louise Penny. Turns out it’s not The Lone Wolf, her most recent, but a couple of books earlier, A Trick of Light.
And as soon as I started reading, something hit me. Louise Penny writes her stories in sentence fragments. With wild abandon. And it works. It keeps things moving. In a way you don’t anticipate. And all those pieces of sentences. Flow along. Introducing complex characters. And revealing their motivations. But it’s foreign territory. For me.
As a survivor of Mrs. Medigovich’s English class my senior year at Bisbee High School, I’m compelled to write. In complete sentences. Ones that have both subjects and predicates. Remember those? And don’t even bother mentioning Participles and Gerunds! Generation Z has never heard of them, and neither have their teachers. And if there happen to be two independent clauses in any given sentence. They have to be separated by a comma and a conjunction. (Someone sent me an email this week where there were dashes where there should have been commas! I was appalled. And offended. If you’re an English Major, commas are almost sacred—and that goes for the Oxford comma by the way. That’s the one that comes at the end of a series of more than two items. Like this, this, and this! For example!
PS. In case you’re wondering, here’s the deal with Gerunds and Participles. Gerunds are words ending in ING that are used as nouns. Walking is good for you. Sleeping is too. In these instances both WALKING and SLEEPING are Gerunds. Participles are ING words used as an adjective or as an adverb modifying an adjective. She was a living and breathing walking monster! In this case WALKING is a participle—an adjective modifying the noun MONSTER. LIVING and BREATHING are both Gerunds modifying the adjective WALKING. Got it?
Very early in our courtship, Bill and I attended a play at the Seattle Rep where the sweet young wife of a curmudgeonly English professor goes off on a so-called whale-watching expedition. By the way WATCHING is a participle in this instance because it’s an ING word modifying the noun EXPEDITION! But I digress. Back to the play. The professor finally explodes in anger and shouts: ____ (Insert four letter bad word here starting with an F.) ____ the whales! Save the Gerund!
Only three people in the audience laughed at that line, and Bill and I were two of them. That’s probably one of the reasons we’re still married thirty-nine years later. We both got that joke.
And now, having shown you in black and white why my grandson calls me his Grammar Grandma, I’m going to curl up. Next to our gas-log fireplace. And read a story. That will continue to be told. In one sentence fragment after another. And I intend to enjoy. Every minute of it.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!
PS. Although we had a generator, hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly without electricity on Tuesday night and stayed that way for days. When I went to bed on Saturday evening there were still 60,000 customers in the Seattle area that were without power. At 4:15 this morning, while we were snug in our bed, someone was out there working in the cold and the rain. That’s when our power came back on and the generator shut off. All of which means I have one more thing to say: THE MOST IMPORTANT LINEMEN IN THE COUNTRY DO NOT PLAY FOOTBALL FOR THE NFL! And I thank them all for their hard work!
I am thankful for you and am so happy you are the Grammar Grandma. That makes your work doubly satisfying! Grammar on and keep creating. Happy Thanksgiving!
That was funny. And Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Here–in AZ–great weather–sun–no rain–no storms–lots of electricity.
I had so much trouble in English classes in the 60’s in high school but I appalled at the grammar used by today’s communicators. My daughter and granddaughter are both English majors in college so I can use them to edit anything I need.
In Alabama we use the generators for our thunderstorms and tornadoes. We have been out of electricity for up to 12 days so we know the feeling.
I’m a baby boomer, born in the mid/late 50s. I at least heard about gerunds and participles (dangling and not) but I never learned to identify them or a preposition for that matter. So it goes back a lot further than generation Z. I also never learned how to diagram a sentence or even know what that means. I’m proud that I usually manage to achieve subject verb agreement, but Mrs. Wolf, 7th and 8th grade English insisted that we use the Oxford comma, although I don’t remember her using that term. Between all that and New Math it’s amazing I can function as an adult.
Thank you for the grammar lesson. It was a refresher as I graduated high school in 1969 when such features of written English were hot topics. By the way, Louise Penny’s latest novel is _The Grey Wolf_ and the one you mention reading is _A Trick of the Light_. You are both favorite authors, although your writing styles are quite different. Happy Thanksgiving!
Okay. I’m officially confused. When you say “LIVING and BREATHING are both Gerunds modifying the adjective WALKING.” does that mean that a Gerund can modify an adjective?
It seems Louise Penney writes the way people talk. WWMMS – What Would Mrs. Medigovich Say?
All this grammar talk reminds me of the book “Eats Shoots and Leaves.” (I’m not sure where the commas go)
Please forgive any errors in this missive. Happy Thanksgiving!
I’ve read many of Louise Penny’s books, but lost interest a few books past. I didn’t care what happened to her characters. I’ve been re-reading Maeve Binchy this week. I guess some think she is a cozy, but I don’t think so. Good stories about ordinary people living and loving in Ireland mainly Dublin. Have visited there so it’s nice to be familiar with locations.
Power failures are too common here, but I’m prepared with bottled water, cheese and crackers..
I’m almost afraid to make a comment, because I’m sure I use dashes and commas incorrectly, and I’m also sure I’ve never even heard of an Oxford comma, never mind know what it is. But I’ve learned something about Louise Penny today. I’ve read her whole Inspector Gamache series, including her latest, The Grey Wolf, which I just finished a couple of days ago, and I never noticed that she uses so many incomplete sentences. But now that you mention it, yes, she does. And I’m also thinking that, living up here in the north where our world is already covered by a blanket of white, I should probably get a generator also.
That is the best ever. Our kids give me the side eye when I try to correct their English. Grammar Grammy
Still don’t understand all the nuances of our beautiful English language but thank you for trying…
Bless you, Judy, for giving us a good laugh early this day after Thanksgiving. Enjoy your time reading.
I appreciate that you use complete sentences and wonderful grammar. I like Louise Penny, but it’s in spite of the sentence fragments. I do notice them and remind myself that I forgive them because it’s Louise Penny. Personally, I think her writing would be better with complete sentences.
We have had a generator for years. Our home welcomed many neighbors in 2011 when a huge storm created no power for many days. It was wonderful to make new friends.
My grammarian was Miss Morgan. To this day I diagram sentences in my head. And proper pronouns in singular and plural usage were drilled into me. I have to apologize continually to individuals who want to be addressed with plural pronouns. I’m working on it!
OMG, your English lesson gave me flashbacks to high school. I was not a good student of that, and should have been a better one. I am not surprised at your skill in that department. I first noticed your use of commas in your writing. Not what I was used to seeing. I also am seeing your expanded vocabulary, there are many words new to me in each of your books. I like that; one must always be open to learning. My wife was my “word smith,” as I called her. She might not have been of your caliber, but she helped me a lot. I was the editor for my veteran organization’s newsletter for many years and she would proof read for me. She’s gone now, I should have asked more questions.
I identify with your power issues. We get strong winds on occasion and our power company will cut the power to “avoid wildfires” – they say. I would love to have a generator like yours. Maybe I should get my butt in gear and set up the one I have to be easier to power the house on those events.
Thank you for a great Friday Blog. I love your stories as much as I love your books.
This is not a sad comment. A funny one. The day of the storm, our family came back to Washington from all over the U.S. to celebrate the life of our sister. The day was fairly mild, but the storm roared to life that evening while we were snug in our hotels. The next morning we headed to Tahoma National Cemetery for a family gathering graveside. To our disappointment, all of her flowers were missing. Just a muddy spot with a paper name tag. Then we noticed flowers scattered everywhere. We gathered up what looked to be ours and made a makeshift but somewhat pitiful arrangement. Not sad. We know our sister would have thought it hilarious, so we laughed too. While many genuinely suffered, in hindsight, there are many funny memories as well from storms gone by. Like cooking a full dinner on a BBQ. Heating water to wash dishes.