Die, -cal, die!

Nitpickery strikes again! Or, better put: Another of my bugbears!

As I've said, writers take responsibility for the English language and it's use - or abuse. Laziness is no excuse. Our job is tough enough without lackadaisacal attitudes towards the language we love.

I read the August edition of Writers Digest yesterday and was astonished to see the word grammatical. "What's wrong with that?" I hear you ask. Well, it's not really a word. It is a part of the group that 'ironical' belongs; another non-word.

Is there something wrong with grammatic or ironic? Or is the use of -cal simply idiosyncratic to American grammar?

I don't actually know. As I said in my last post, the English language evolves and it's a King Canute job to stop it. Nor should it remain static. If it had, we'd be speaking an ancient form of English that bears little to what it is today.

Then why point out these small, harmless breaches? Personal preference and a joy of the language I speak. Both words aren't used that much, but as an editor and a writer, the business is in the small stuff.

English, as almost any foreign language speaker will tell you, isn't the most lyrical of languages. It's complex - but not as difficult as Asian languages - it's colloquial - Australian, English, American, South African, New Zealand English all have dialects and accents. It's diverse and prone to diaspora.

One day, each of the countries above will determine that they speak English, and yet it will be like a foreign language to the others. Nothing will be able to stop it. Then again, we all may speak a langauge similar to that of Blade Runner.

I don't like the use of 'ironical' or 'grammatical'. To me, they are an error, disrupt the flow of words and, as an editor, I plan to cross '-cal' out wherever I feel it appropriate. If that makes me old-fashioned, so be it.

I'm an Oxford Dictionary woman. I'll use Macquarie for Aussie authors and Websters for Americans, but if I can get away with it, other tiny, harmless 'errors' will be snuffed out - hopefully, like the abuse of '-cal'. Because one small breach can lead to dam-busting. So I'll stick my finger in the hole for a while.