An internal optometrist

Is there a chance Americans just don’t read as much as they used to? And if they do, have their reading habits and choice of material changed significantly? And can we count the texting-pecking exchanges on iPhone keyboards as reading?

I ask this question earnestly. At the moment I don’t have access to data to verify or contradict what I believe. In this case, I’m just asking.

A Highlands professor I really respect, back in the days when we used to eat dinosaurs, Elmer Schooley, made a believer of me.

Carelessly, I made my orthographic “v” look like an “r,” and the professor wrote a note on my exam paper, with the grade lowered one full letter, “When people misspell words that appear in their textbooks, that tells me they’re not reading the assignments.”

He had a point. An excellent point. Of course I’d read the required chapters, and my lowered grade came courtesy of careless penmanship. Yet, given the way people write and speak today, we wonder: Do people read as much as they used to? And is the quality of the reading material worthy of praise?

I’m convinced that a great many people merely listen, and they base their own speaking, writing and spelling on what they think they’ve heard. How else would otherwise intelligent people refer to “time and memorial” when they mean “time immemorial”? And how about “don’t misunderestimate me,”?\ spoken by George W. Bush?

People commit malaprops. I wrote a while back about a Highlands student who referred to having been left “strangled in the subway.” Surely, she meant “stranded” and “sub,” as in Student Union Building. I asked others who’d heard her lament, and they agreed that what she’d said seemed sincere, even if it was a grammatical train wreck.

Of course there are malapropisms, named in honor of a character in a 1775 play by Sheridan, “The Rivals.” The character of Mrs. Malaprop was given to using similar-sounding words instead of the correct ones, often with comic effect. One utterance by Mrs. Malaprop in that play was, “He is the very pineapple of politeness.”

So we hear expressions like “You could have knocked me over with a fender.” On radio last month, someone said, “without further to-do” in the place of “ado.” And we also heard, “I won’t bite into that idea.”

Too many of these unusual usages of the language point to people’s failure to see the words in print, and therefore they assume that what they utter is correct. And of course, we all know what happens when we ass-u-me.

So, for the next few paragraphs, you may take a reading tour of various malapropisms, uttered by some well-known speakers, mostly politicians. As you read them, try to figure out what actual word the speaker intended:

“This is unparalyzed in the state’s history.” The speaker was Gib Lewis, Texas Speaker of the House.

“We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile.” —George W. Bush.

“Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.” — Dan Quayle, vice president

“Well, that was a cliff-dweller.” — Wes Westrum, about a close baseball game.

“Be sure and put some of those neutrons on it.” — Mike Smith, ordering a salad at a restaurant.

Other malapropisms, not necessarily attributed, include:

“Well, I try to look at the bright side. I guess you could say I’m an internal optometrist.”

Archie Bunker of the old sitcom All in the Family is credited with saying, “A witness shall not bare falsies against thy neighbor.”

Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos gets credit for “Why not? Play captains against each other, create a little dysentery in the ranks.”

And Little Carmine of The Sopranos is reputed to have said, “There’s no stigmata connected with going to a shrink.”

• • •

Here’s one person who obviously reads a lot. Sara Harris, a Highlands professor of languages, e-mailed this observation:

“I was reading a People magazine and there was an article about Prince Harry which was titled ‘What does he wear out?’ I got to thinking that it could actually mean three things. What garment does he leave hanging out … likea shirt tail, what item does he wear out because he’s used it way too long, or, and, of course, this is what they really meant … what does he wear to go out?”

Sara’s observation calls to mind a term my brother, Severino, used when we were kids: “I beat you up this morning.”

“You what? If you did, I must have slept through it. Where are the bruises?”

What my brother meant was merely that he got up earlier than I did. He wasn’t referring to anything violent (the violence usually occurred later, in our back yard).

But really now … it seems “I beat you up” is much more efficient way of conveying the message. What are the alternatives: “I arose before you did”? “I availed myself to matutinal matters while you were in soporific”? “I levitated prior to you during matins”? “I acquired morning consciousness before you roused yourself from your medieval torpor”?

“I beat you up” sounds better.