Seniors: The Grumpy Grammarian

It is shortly after noon on Friday, November 11. Dinner Bell patrons are beginning to sign in at the reception table in the Presbyterian Church’s Fellowship Hall. The staff is assembled in the kitchen but the food service counter is bare. A senior staff member is overhead saying to the chef, “I don’t see nothing,” referring to the bare counter.

Here, dear reader, we have a classic grammatical rule in play —two negatives make a positive. “Don’t” and “nothing” are negative words. Did the speaker mean, “I don’t see anything” or “I do see nothing.” I think we can infer she meant both, but the latter is outrageously clumsy.

Or maybe she was making a joke. But if your granddaughter declares, “I didn’t do nothing,” you can bet the house she did.

Mollie N. of North Ram Island Drive reports a questionable grammatical lapse that seriously aggrieves  her — “He went missing.”

“Missing” is the “ing” form of the verb “to miss.” It makes a gerund or noun form in this case, and is technically correct. Grandpa went fishing; Grandma went shopping; and the grandchildren went kayaking in Smith Cove. The gerund is the object in this sentence, and all’s right in the grammatical world.

So why doesn’t “He went missing” work?

Years ago people went missing in Argentina. They disappeared. Occasionally we read about the man who disappeared himself, perhaps to start a new life under a new name. People are inadvertently deleted from computer listings and “disappear.”

I don’t think you have a true  grammatical lapse here, Mollie. Think “disappeared” and you’ll be less aggrieved. However, let’s ask our readers for their comments on this issue.

I do hope Dorothy Seiberling, our finicky anti-faddist, will return to “Island Seniors” in December. Her elegant sensitivity may have been further sharpened by a vacation in Italy.

Call me at 749-0751 if you have a “grammatical lapse” to report. — MB