A long time coming

I’ve been waiting a long time to write about the word longtime. OK,

not really. I’ve been waiting only about an hour, ever since I got a

press release mentioning a “long-time” employee of a Newport-Mesa

business.

This is a very common and understandable mistake. If your car is

in long-term parking and your dad is a long-standing member of the

thimble collectors society, and your bitter memories of high school

include a long-lived rumor about your fear of public showers, it

would seem to naturally follow that “long time” is also hyphenated.

Not so. When it’s an adjective, it’s just one word. Ditto for

“lifelong,” by the way.

Why, you ask? Don’t ask. It’s just one of the weird whims of the

grammar gods: Time and usage just made it so.

The question of whether to hyphenate, leave as two words or make

into one word usually has to do with the part of speech.

“Lineup” is an example. “I dream that one day I’ll be able to line

up my detractors against the wall and give them all a piece of my

mind. But, most of the bullies happen to be part of the starting

lineup on the school lacrosse team.” In the first case, it’s a verb.

But when it’s a noun, lineup is just one word.

Backup is one word as a noun, as in, “the bully in the locker room

whipping me with towels had backup.” It’s also one word as an

adjective: “backup goons.” But it’s two words as a verb: “Back up and

put your hands in the air.”

We’ll go into this issue in greater depth once I’ve exorcised a

few more demons of adolescence. In the meantime, I’ve got some more

laundry to air.

If you think that most people don’t care about perfect grammar,

you’re probably right. But the ones who do care can be downright

scary.

If you don’t believe me, get a job at a newspaper. From time to

time, we get letters from self-righteous language experts so vicious

that they’re actually funny. Case in point: A reporter here received

in the mail a copy of one of her own articles with an error circled.

The anonymous handwritten commentary on the newsprint read: “Stupid

you.”

Harsh, huh? Especially when you consider that errors in newspapers

are always a collaborative flub (editors share the responsibility for

preventing them), this reader’s attack proves that I’d rather pepper

my speech with “ain’ts” and “younguns” than use a little bit of

grammar knowledge as an excuse to abuse people.

One of my favorite reader diatribes came years ago, after I’d

written a story about a farrier -- a person who puts shoes on horses.

Perhaps it wasn’t too clever of me to call him a “shoe-in” in a

subheading of the article, but that wasn’t the main gripe of the

reader who wrote in. I actually got a postcard from a member of some

grammar-enforcement society. I think the card was called a “no-no

card.” The reader informed me that what I had meant to say was

“shoo-in.”

I wonder if she, no doubt a longtime expert on language, would

approve of my use of the word: “duh!”

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

[email protected].