Today's seasonal grammar lesson: The word 'tis means the same as the word it's. Both are contractions of it is, and in both cases the apostrophe replaces a missing letter i.

When they both first appeared around the 16th century, 'tis meant the same thing it does today, but it's was originally used as the possessive form of the gender-neutral third person singular it. After it's gradually became its (for unclear reasons), it's replaced 'tis (for unclear reasons). Now, if you erroneously type it's when you mean its, someone will snidely correct you in your comments section.

While we're on the subject, 'twas means it was and 'twere means it were, neither of which anyone ever contracts anymore, but I'm starting to think we all should. On the other hand, I think it wise to let 'tbe remain an unwhispered word.

Interestingly, both 'tis and 'twas appear with appropriate apostrophes and modern definitions in the 1806 first edition of Noah Webster's Compendius [a. ſort, brief, conciſe, ſummary] Dictionary. Comparatively, it, its, and it's are entirely omitted. (At least *I* think that's interesting.)

By the way, the only time you can get away with dropping the apostrophe from 'tis and 'twas is if you're playing Scrabble®, but that's because The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary© recognizes tis as the "the seventh tone of the diatonic musical scale" and twas as meaning "two." Sorry, Scrabblers, but twere is still not a legally recognized play.

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Twitter very helpfully reminds me that today is Batman Day 2021. Explains the site: "Fans pay tribute to the DC Comics superhero on Batman Day, which is celebrated each year on the third Saturday of September." The only problem with that description is that it is not true.

Maybe Batman Day is held on the third Saturday of September since 2018, but it wasn't always. As I have documented elsewhere, Batman Day has been all over the calendar since it was first recognized in July 2014. But that's not the part I'm really bothered by.

The word "fans" in that description is misleading, unless you'd describe the corporations who own the Batman intellectual property as fans. Unlike Star Wars Day, which began as a genuine celebration of its source material before being taken over as a marketing exercise by The Walt Disney Co., Batman Day has never been anything other than a marketing exercise by WarnerMedia.

I wonder if whoever crafted that description for Twitter wasn't having a little fun with the wording. The phrase "pay tribute," which has come to mean a figurative giving of praise, was originally meant quite literally. A tribute is a tax levied on conquered peoples. Give your thanks (and dollars!) to your corporate masters, Bat-fans!

Which is not to say that I don't like Batman or think it's uncool to say how great the Caped Crusader is. I'd just like a little honesty in why we chose today to do it, is all.

Batman #119, October 1958

Honesty! It's what Batman would want.

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Dictionary.com made news this week by defining "supposably" to mean "as may be assumed, imagined, or supposed." That's the same definition typically ascribed to "supposedly" ("according to what is accepted or believed"). There was a time in my life I would have been bent out of shape about this.

Where I come from, "supposably" is not a word. At least, it's not that word. According to my trusty Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (2nd Edition), "supposably" should mean "in a supposable manner." However, it has been used as a mispronunciation of "supposedly" for so long that some 21st-century lexicographers have finally thrown up their hands in defeat.

I have a personal connection to this word because my father has always uses supposably when he means supposedly. In his case, I think he does it because it bothers me. Dad's a real tease that way. (See? It's not my fault. I have been trained to be argumentative by a parent who thinks its fun to fly red flags in front of bulls!)

The reason I'm not a raving basket case over this new definition is because A) I've been reading a lot lately about the bizarre and often counter-intuitive developmental history of the English language, and B) the world is in such a state that if I let myself get worked up over words these days then I'm really going to need to start drinking. The meanings of English words have been meandering for centuries and will continue to do so for so long as someone is still speaking the language. I need to remember that the important part of language is understanding one another, not clinging to arbitrary rules of pronunciation.

That said, I will continue not using "supposably" in my own writing. Even in the 21st-century, a man's got to stand for something.

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Sadly, these shorts were sold out by the time I spotted them on DHGate.com* at the bargain prices of $2.68 (with free shipping!):

*DHGate, for those of you who don't live on the Internet, is an online marketplace like Amazon.com for Chinese manufacturers seeking to unload surplus goods to resellers. This is where sweatshops sell their knockoff shoes after they've fulfilled their orders for Ivanka Trump. For example, compare these shorts with the $14.99 pair you'll find from SuperHeroStuff on Amazon.com.

And while I do want to wear Superman's shorts, I post this pic mainly because of the delightful Engrish catalog text.

CUSTUMES INSIDE TO WEAR
Give you the most suitable underwear, wear make you confidence. I
of you in the other half of the face, not inferior, to give you strength to master everything.

It takes a Superman to understand what that is trying to say.

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While checking for news from the aftermath of Sunday's game between the New Orleans Saints and the Miami Dolphins in London, my phone returned this.

Some people don't know when or how to use quotation marks. Most of the time, they should be used when directly quoting someone, such as dialog in novels or citing from sources in news stories. The difference is clear in Jay Cutler said I suck, and Jay Cutler said, "I suck".

Quotation marks can also be used to prevent confusion when referencing a word or phrase itself and not its meaning. You can see what I mean in Jay Cutler prefers "dicks."

And, of course, there's a third use for quotation marks: denoting irony or sarcasm.

On Sunday, the Dolphins lost 20-0. The were shut out by the Saints, a team with a nearly historically bad defense. The highlight of the game was when Jay Cutler actively refused to participate in a Wildcat play. The petulant quarterback stood on the field with his hands on his hips and watched his team lose three yards on yet another drive that would end with a punt. With quality teamwork like that from its quarterback, no wonder the Dolphins are one missed field goal away from being 0-3.

Coach Adam Gase deciding to pay Jay Cutler $10 million instead of starting Matt Moore may prove to be the worst decision of his young head coaching career. Maybe not Nick Saban choosing Daunte Culpepper's knee over Drew Brees' shoulder bad, but not too much worse.

As you can see, the writer of that Wikipedia entry knew what he was doing.

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It seems that everywhere I turn these days, I'm hearing more and more of my current least-favorite word: "unbelievable."

Once upon a time, impressive feats of athleticism were "unbelievable." Then Internet service for $29.95 a month became "unbelievable." Now discovering that a forty-ton airplane won't stay airborne unless someone is really paying attention is "unbelievable."

To those of you who sprinkle the word into your daily lives, I do not think it means what you think it means. Merriam Webster describes "unbelievable" to mean "too improbable for belief." The definition includes vampires or peace in the Middle East but not delicious doughnuts or a coach's decision to pass instead of run.

There really aren't that many things we come across in the physical universe that are unbelievable. Infinity? God? That Kim Kardashian makes $28 million per year? Those are unbelievable.

If you literally are incapable of believing the things your eyes are showing you, it's not that those things can't be imagined, it's that you have no imagination. Personally, that is something I find pretty unbelievable.

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The 2012 New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year is "gif." That's right, "gif," as in the acronym for Graphics Interchange Format, a digital image format introduced to the world by CompuServe in 1987 and largely replaced in the 21st century by the patent-free Portable Network Graphics ("png") format. "Gif," pronounced either as "gift" without the "g" or as the peanut butter brand Jif, depending largely on what side of the Atlantic Ocean you're on, has finally climbed to the top of the logophile heap, and all it took was changing into a verb.

I'm not one to doubt the wisdom of the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary, but I can't say that I've heard the word "gif" used as a verb yet. The archaic gif, unloved and abandoned by digital imagery professionals, now survives thanks to amateurs who have found that it makes a handy universal format for animating and sharing brief clips of children being attacked by animals and adults earning Darwin Awards. If anything, it's not "gif" that should be awarded, but "ISP," for finally building the Internet's tubes large enough to support the ridiculously bloated size of animated gifs.

Ultimately, I have to guess that if a 25-year old word is the Word of the Year, it must have been a slow year for words. Seeing the hoopla that "gif" got, I thought I'd take a look back at past words honored by the New Oxford American Dictionary:

2012. gif
2013. squeezed middle
2014. refudiate
2015. unfriend
2016. hypermilling
2017. locavore
2018. carbon-neutral
2019. podcast

It's almost like looking into a time capsule! All of those are zeitgeist words. Who refudiates anymore? I guess that means that in a few years, we won't even remember that in 2012 we giffed.

Yep, just like it all never happened....

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Comparing apples to apples:

Less than 1 penny each? Damn, those are some cheap apples. In fairness, they were very bruised, but that only makes sense. The link between poverty and domestic violence is well documented.

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Bloggers like me have to think about a lot more things than blog readers like you. Besides what important topics I need to write about, I also have to consider which words in each sentence should be Capitalized. Should "potatoe" be spelled without the final "e"? And nothing I have to say is more important than how I punctuate it!

Take the so-called Oxford comma. Some people call the Oxford comma a serial comma, but I find that it tastes terrible in milk. If you didn't know, the Oxford comma is the comma appearing immediately before the final item in a series as demonstrated here, there, and everywhere.

I was taught in high school by an ironclad woman named Barbara Landreth that the Oxford comma should always be used always. Always. However, while The Oxford Style Manual still endorses the comma it named, it seems to me that most bloggers don't care for it anymore. It certainly doesn't help that newspaper reporters have shunned use of the Oxford comma, but look where that attitude has gotten them.

"Walter," I hear you say, "it's 2012. Everyone texts now; no one cares about stupid commas anymore!" Well, you should. That extra comma really clarifies quite a bit. Take the following examples and consider how their meaning would change with the addition of an old-fashioned Oxford comma:

Martha Stewart's former cellmate says the most important elements of a good Halloween party are the guests, crackers and spooks.

In a national election for the President of the United States, the American people will never elect Mormons, liars and criminals, unless they have no other choices.

She introduced me to her favorite body parts, Dick and Peter.

Oxford commas. They're not just for breakfast anymore.

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While browsing the internet to find the etymology for the neologism "trickeration" -- currently my least favorite word in the English language -- I discovered that Jason Taylor has announced that he will retire after Sunday's game. So the horrible 2011 season will claim one last player before it's all over.

Taylor will retire with the second most starts ever as a Miami Dolphin. If Taylor hadn't spent one season each with the Redskins and Jets, he'd need only 1 more season to pass Dan Marino's 242 games as a Dolphins' starter. Seeing as this is the year that the most significant of Marino's remaining passing records falls, it seems a missed opportunity not to eliminate his other records from the books. At the rate that the Dolphins discard their players these days, perhaps that's the Marino record that is truly unbeatable.

This is the fifth time I've blogged about Jason Taylor. It will probably be the last, if Taylor is smart enough to stay away from an organization that rewarded him with a trade to the Redskins just 1 year after the NFL made Taylor into a 26-feet tall robot. It's a shame that Taylor can't ride off into the sunset with a championship ring, but that's what happens to modern Hall of Famers in Miami. It sucks, Jason, but you just sort of get used to it.

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