The Vine: June 8, 2005
Dear Sars,
So I come from a moderately religious background, with extended family
who tends more towards religious and less towards moderate.My cousins
host an annual huge party, to which the whole family is
invited, and I was all set to go this year.I just found out though,
that my aunt, who is married with someone not of our religion (which is
a major no-no according to these people) is not going to be attending.
She’s never come in the past, due to some estrangement stemming from
some hostility towards her choices, but this year my aunt was there for
my cousin, who’s hosting, through some really tough times (her mother
died this year), and my cousin and my aunt decided that she should go
this year, and bring her husband — a good step, right?
Wrong.The more religious cousins of mine (who make up a substantial
portion of the party) blew up at this, saying that they would be
incredibly rude to Husband of Aunt if he came (which makes no sense,
since according to them, my aunt did the bad thing, not her husband).
The host was considering making a stand on this, but she explained the
situation to my aunt, who decided she did not want to subject her
husband to the hostility of these people, and bowed out.
Here’s the question: Do I go?This whole thing obviously disgusts me,
especially the thought of the small-minded folk who shut my aunt and
her husband out of the party milling about smugly, with no consequences
to their actions, while my aunt is effectively barred from her family’s
party for no good reason.On the other hand, this is my only chance to
see many of my family members (ones who would have welcomed my aunt if
they had the chance).
Furthermore, the host is an elderly-ish woman
who’s had a tough year, and I don’t want to punish her by skipping her
party.Also, there’s the fact that my aunt in reality made the
decision not to go on her own, though I don’t really buy that one.I
think that the host should have insisted on my aunt and husband coming,
and said that anyone who can’t be civil to them isn’t welcome.But
that’s not what happened, and my question boils down to: Do I have to
boycott? I’d like to go to the party, of course, but the thought of
partying with the people who did this to my aunt, and going to the
party she wasn’t allowed to attend makes me more than a little sick.
What to do?
Thanks, and you’re awesome, by the way,
L
Dear L,
I think you should go, and — remembering of course that pointing out the rudeness of others is very rude in itself — have as little contact with the excluding culprits as possible.Civil, but extremely cool.
I agree with you that the host should have put her foot down, but if you think about it, she’s probably in the same position as you — wants to see some people, doesn’t want to let other people get in the way of that or cause a big hassle — and this may have seemed like the best solution to her.I don’t concur, but it’s her party.
So, go, but phone your aunt or send her a note beforehand and let her know how much you’ll miss her at the party and how much you wish she could be there.Don’t shit-talk; just support her.Maybe plan a time to see her and/or her husband on your own another day.I’m sure your aunt doesn’t expect you to take a stand on her behalf; she’s done that for herself.But letting her know that the situation isn’t going unnoticed, or approved of, by you is probably a good gesture to make.
Sars —
Love The Vine, regularly read it. The essays I’m more sporadic with, but I thoroughly enjoyed the “25 and Over” piece. That’s one of those great screeds people should make a point of emailing one another.
One grammar question, though, and since this is one of your specialties I’m assuming I’m wrong here, but I can’t figure out why:
16. Drinking until you throw up is no longer properly a point of pride. It happensto the best of us, but be properly ashamed the next day; work on your tolerance,or eat something first, but amateur hour ended several years hence.
Shouldn’t that be “ended several years ago”? By saying “hence,” aren’t you indicating that amateur hour will end several years down the road?
And while I have you (of course Vine this if you like), do you differentiate in pronunciations of “patronize”? I’ve always wondered if the long “a” should be used in the context of patronizing a business (“I refuse to patronize a fur store since I’m a member of PETA”) — while the short “a” pronunciation goes to the suggestion of condescention (“don’t patronize me, you ninny!”) Is this a subtle nuance which most people ignore, or am I just overly attentive to nonsensical detail?
Thanks much.
Detail Oriented
Dear Needing A Hyphen,
A couple of quick notes: 1) “detail-oriented” needs a hyphen; 2) it’s “condescension,” with an “s.”It does look weird, for some reason, that word, but that’s how it’s spelled.
And now, to “hence.”I threw the word in there for that lofty-diction feel, and I think it’s probably okay — if only because, for reasons I don’t understand, I have a bit of a block with words that indicate time.The word “erstwhile” is, like, my nemesis; I can.not.stop. using it as a synonym for “aspiring” or “once and future,” which it doesn’t mean.All this by way of saying that, when it comes to using words like “hence” or “thither,” I’m usually more careful with their deployment.
But it’s not like I’ve never biffed a usage before, so let’s have a look…okay, here’s the definition of “hence.”You’re right that “hence” can mean “from this time” or “from this place” (particularly in opposition to the word “hither,” which means “to this time/place” — viz. “thence/thither” and “whence/whither”).
It can also mean “therefore,” and substitute for “ergo,” which, while it’s listed as the third definition, is probably the most common usage in AmE today.
But the first definition is “from this place : AWAY,” which strictly speaking is neutral on the direction in which “away” lies — could be in the past, could be down the road a piece.It doesn’t say.
So, where does that leave us?Well, my usage of “hence” is not wrong, technically — but, as I always say in these responses, clarity is king, and there could be some “brand confusion” among the definitions (and obviously there is, hence your letter…heh), most of which do at least imply “from this time [forward]” and not “ago.”So, “hence” is not ideal usage, either.
But, because I’m lazy and it’s not outright incorrect, I’m leaving it.On the plus side, we’re both right.Yay!
Oh, hello, decaf.
As for “patronizing,” now that you’ve pointed it out, I do notice that people will use a long “ay” for one, but not the other.I don’t know where that comes from, but the dictionary doesn’t seem to support differentiating between the two pronunciations and definitions the way we do “OFF-ense” (during a baseball game) and “of-FENSE” (which we take).
People making the distinction are doing so pointlessly, but it’s not incorrect.
Because you’re still “one of the cool kids,” I’m hoping your fresh
perspective will divine a way to handle this situation effectively and
allow me a modicum of respect and “street cred.”
Apparently, I’ve become the woman I always swore I’d never be: The
self-righteously indignant, fist-shaking, muttering old cat lady who
bitterly shuffles around and grumbles about “those damn kids.” I’m not
yet thirty. I don’t want to be That Woman.
I live in a three-family house, and I share an apartment with the daughter
of the owner. Across the street are similar houses: three-family houses
broken into three separate apartments. In one or two of those apartments,
apparently, are teenagers living alone or with limited adult
supervision (at best).
I’m not sure whether these kids all go to school or not, but
afternoons and evenings are hell for us because their entire group
seems to congregate on our street. The one kid we know for sure
actually lives there seems to have drag-racing (or gambling or drugs)
as a hobby. He constantly has significant damage to his car, has
modified it to be extra loud (i.e. removed the muffler and added…an
amplifier?), and occasionally when the damage is too severe, he gets a
new vehicle to torture. His visitors seem to have extra-loud vehicles,
too. Once, we witnessed some random thugs trashing the car, and we
would have called the police except the owner of the car was just
sitting on his porch watching the vandalism!
These kids also, unfortunately, love to share their music with
everyone in town. When making repairs to the car, they’ll open all the
doors and blast the music at an absurd volume. (I guess when you’re a
hard-living, hard-rockin’ teen, no mere radio is loud enough, so you
must install subwoofers and amps to make absolutely certain that no
knick-knacks or tchotchkes in the county go unwobbled). It’s not that
it’s awful music or even music that I wouldn’t ordinarily listen to.
It’s not and I do. It’s the volume and the bass driving me crazy.
Last night, they again opened all the doors of the car and cranked the
volume to about 17. The cats were unnerved, even. I stepped out onto
our front deck and made a pointed look at…the car. The kids were
nowhere to be seen! Just as I was turning to head back indoors, I
noticed one of the girls running from the side of our house — and I
could just picture the flaming bag of poo she had undoubtedly left
behind. (Purely imagined, thankfully.) Assuming they had lost
something (because why else would they be beside our house when they
have their own about 50 feet away), I asked what they were looking for.
As it turns out, they were all sitting on the roof of a very rickety
old garage next door, and using the “alley” between our house and the
garage to “chill.” Safety issues of broken glass, rusty nails, and
crumbly bricks aside, I’m just not keen to have them smoking,
drinking, or “rough-housing” so close to our house.
I know “kids will be kids.” The handling of live snakes (with no cage
in sight), newborn kittens, and even the wafting aroma of pot are
things we can handle. I also know that confronting these kids likely
won’t have any positive effect. The other tenants in our house have
mentioned how loud these kids are, and because everyone in the house
has a late-model car, everyone is concerned about potential damage to
their vehicles as these kids zoom past on skateboards, snowboards, or
throw bricks at one another (which we’ve seen them do!).
This winter, they turned our front yard into a snowboarding ramp, and
when the owner of the house stopped by to visit, she saw it and told
them not to do it. Because they’re not too bright, they told her that
the owner of the house had given them permission to do so.
Last night while, as usual, the music was blaring, we saw one kid’s
father walk right past him into their house — so I highly doubt that
invoking parental intervention would even be an option, let alone an
effective one. Calling the police seems to be a drastic option, and
probably wouldn’t even be worthwhile as the kids usually quiet down at
around 11 and aside from possible drug use and trespassing, I don’t
think there’s anything illegal going on. If the owner of our house
talks to the owner of the other house, repercussions could occur and,
well, we have the cats’ safety to worry about as well as bikes, cars,
computers, et cetera. We definitely want to avoid retaliation in any form,
but it doesn’t seem too hysterical or paranoid to anticipate thrown
eggs, TP in our trees, or, yes, flaming bags of poo.
I don’t want to be That Woman. I’m hoping you can advise me on a safe,
semi-cool way to tell these young whippersnappers to be better
neighbors without coming across as the Queen of Uncool. Thanks for
your advice.
(Hopefully) Not That Woman
Dear Which Woman?,
At the risk of talking to you like you’re five…have you walked over there and asked them to please turn the music down?What’s with all the quotation marks?And who cares if they think you’re cool or uncool?This isn’t Dead Auto-Shop Society — they aren’t looking for you to be an inspiring parental figure.They probably just want you either not to care what they get up to, or to be polite and not talk to them like they’re 1) dumb or 2) assholes.
Which they kind of are, and — look, I live on a major thoroughfare, so I feel you with the super-bass, and before that I lived a half-story above a busted-out sofa that was the teen hang spot on the block, and constantly with the squawky laughing and the glass breaking and the menthol smoke right under my office, and it was a problem — which I solved by leaning out when it got too loud and politely asking if they would mind keeping it down a bit because I was on deadline, thanks, I really appreciate it.
But I think you are kind of That Lady with the thinking they’re going to ding-dong-ditch you, because seriously, teenagers are not that venal as a rule.They aren’t doing this stuff specifically to piss you off; they’re not laughing at your discomfiture.They…don’t even know you’re alive.They’re teenagers.They’re caught up in their own thing.That can be annoying, but ninety-five times out of a hundred, you draw their attention to the fact that they’re bugging others, and the reaction isn’t “FUCK YOU, MAAAAAAAAAN.”It’s more like “…Oh.”
If they’re doing something that bothers you, ask them nicely to stop.The next time the music is living in your sternum, head across the street with a bag of Doritos and a little wave, introduce yourself, ask if they could turn it down a little, soften the blow with “…Cool Ranch?Anyone?”, say it’s nice to meet them and thanks for the consideration, and go back to your house.Happens again?Ask again.Again?Ask again.”Come on, guys, I can’t hear Idol.”Then call the cops if you have to, but really: it’s not a pack of wolves.They know they’re pushing it; it’s what kids do sometimes, and if someone doesn’t tell them to stop, they don’t always stop on their own.But when someone does, they usually do, because while teenagers can be self-absorbed, they can also be considerate and well-mannered.Same as adults.
This isn’t The Blackboard Jungle.You don’t have to be afraid of them.Just go over there, or open a window, and ask nicely if they could pipe down.And for God’s sake don’t use the word “rough-housing.”
Tags: grammar kids the fam
