Self-described grammar nerd Ellen Jovin came to town last week with her husband, Brandt Johnson, and their film Rebel with a Clause. A large, appreciative audience at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque enjoyed the movie and the Q & A that followed, and many attendees purchased Ellen’s book (with the subtitle Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian) afterwards.
In 2018, Ellen first set up the Grammar Table outside her Manhattan apartment with a sign inviting people to ask questions, vent,* and complain about grammar and grammar-adjacent* topics. Since 2018, the couple has* carted the Grammar Table to all fifty states, with Brandt filming hundreds of interactions with ordinary people on such pressing issues as the Oxford comma, the vagaries of lie vs. lay, and the proper use of the objective case pronoun (e.g., whom and me).
Ellen and Brandt are approachable and funny. In this they are similar to those visiting their table. Ordinary people in Toledo; Chicago; Decatur, Alabama; South Bend, Indiana; Red Cloud, Nebraska;* and many other cities are hilarious in their passion and argumentativeness, their insecurities and occasional over-confidence. Some people, for example, feel the urge to kill when they hear a sentence ending with a preposition. Ellen explains to them that this rule derives from Latin, and, because English is a Germanic language, not Latinate, prepositions are fine to end an English sentence with.
One should avoid, for instance, such constructions as, “Up to what are you?”*
The movie is traveling around the country as we speak, appearing in New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,* and Georgia in coming weeks. It’s not streaming yet, but, fingers crossed, it will be fairly soon. In the meantime, Ellen’s book is available wherever books are sold, and I recommend it. She and Brandt, their movie, and their book go way beyond grammar rules. They’re all about communication, and they make friends wherever they go, including here in Cleveland.
Note: Ellen’s book includes funny footnotes, so I decided to append footnotes here. Not necessarily funny.
*An Oxford comma in the wild. It occurs in a list before the closing and. People feel strongly about this convention–both for and against. Ellen’s approach is nuanced. (Chapter 1)
*Grammar-adjacent combines two words into one modifier with a hyphen—not to be confused with variously-sized dashes. (Chapter 33)
*I’m pretty sure the singular verb has is correct with the collective noun couple, because Ellen and Brandt are acting as a unit, as it were. (Chapter 42)
* The semicolons here do more harm than good, but they’re intended to illustrate semicolons in a list when there are intervening commas, which help identify the locations of less famous cities. (Chapter 23)
*The question mark goes inside the quotation mark because the quote itself is a question. (Chapter 41)
*I’m a fan of, though not fanatical about, the Oxford comma!
I loved this post, Kathy! I will check out the book. I use Grammarly to check my punctuation because I am lazy and insecure, but there are times when I know I am right and the program is wrong. I finally figured out Yoda’s peculiar speech pattern. Thank you for clearing that up.