Author and Screenwriter Harlan Ellison Rants about Proper Grammar in Movies

Author and Screenwriter Harlan Ellison Rants about Proper Grammar in Movies

[@javelin1080]

"I could care less" drives me nuts

[@Right_Said_Brett]

+Johnny Davlin - Absolutely. I actually want to slap people who misuse that phrase. THINK about the words that you are spouting from your mouth, for fuck's sake!

[@BolofromAvlis]

It's always fun to throw that one back in the speaker's face. They think they've said something clever and snarky and you show them that, no, they're just being dumb.

[@Zeithri]

I could care less about this comment. Like not caring at all. Violá.

[@christianwatt2924]

@@Zeithri so you care about it?

[@U-PN-BI-IBW]

@@christianwatt2924yeah, a little. otherwise it wouldnt have gotten replied to

[@slitor]

"Eat your cake and have it to" THAT PHRASE FINALLY MAKES SENSE!

[@PalmSpringsDiva1]

too, not to or two

[@NDHFilms]

I had to smile when I caught Ellison using “could care less” in one of his essays. Also, the Unabomber was caught when his brother recognized the correct phrasing “eat your cake and have it too” in his manifesto.

[@eveningtsar]

"I can't tell you over the phone. . ." is one of my favourites as well. . .

[@christianwatt2924]

"I cant tell you over the phone someone might be listening, but I can tell you when and where i can tell you so they can make sure to be there to listen in aswell"

[@MrPatrick1980]

He's been a hero of mine for a long time.

[@blurymind]

he sounds like daffy duck when he explains how to pronounce "Neanderthal"

[@rtfcfvgghg]

So, everyone that pronounces "Neabderthal" is Daffy Duck

[@vinnynj78]

Are you going to tell him over the phone or are you going to wait until he gets home?

[@Somtimes_Im_creative]

Harlan Ellison god I love you so much i wish you were alive so you could see what theyve done to AM

[@KabukiKid]

"On accident" is the one that drives me crazy. When I hear someone say that, I sort of envision/hear a toddler saying it. "I spilled the juice on accident."

[@conniecarroll7222]

I believe I have heard College Professors have pronounced Dr Jekyll the same for as long as I can recall. That one really caught me.

[@EmlynBoyle]

'The brains of a centipede' 😂😂😂

[@2209009pm]

I'm gonna miss Harlan Ellison and all his, "Rants".

[@jmalmsten]

Well, at least we still have David Mitchell

[@thomascollins4325]

Harlan would go ballistic at the way grammar is mangled today!!!!

[@Joel-bg3cf]

I love Harlan Ellison, but let’s not forget, this is the guy that wrote a paragraph long sentence fragment about jellybeans.

[@KabukiKid]

LOL This is true. Keep in mind that the Harlequin was the ultimate non-conformist of that world, so the context was maybe to help express that. No doubt that Harlan wrote that part very intentionally and ironically.

[@Dumptruck4Lif]

And it was a damn good paragraph too

[@johnschaefer2238]

Another thing people say that drives me crazy is “aks” instead of ask.

[@ajp-wales110]

Joe Pesci should play this man.

[@mikedonovan8811]

I had an anthropology professor who pronounced Neanderthal the way most people do, then corrected himself. It could be that the guy who calls the detective knows that his life is in danger, and wants the detective to give him a ride out of the neighborhood of the abandoned warehouse, because he knows that the only way to get away on foot is either to run through alleys that are blocked by chainlink fences (as are all alleys that have chase scenes) or that he has to jump over the alleys, from one roof to the next. Some people can't jump that far. I'm head over heels in love with this rant.

[@JerrySaraviaCinema1895]

Nowadays I hate "To be perfectly honest..." or "Honestly" - everyone does that. I think just saying "Let's be frank" would be enough though I am sure more experienced writers have something to add to this. I do miss Ellison

[@dougbrowne9890]

Brilliant.

[@racewiththefalcons1]

Where the hell does he get Jaykll from?

[@Michelle15556]

Yeah, I'd like to know xD first time I've ever heard Jaykll

[@whosaidiwantedahandle]

Apparently both are wrong. It's not Jehkle or Jaykle. It's Jeekle.

[@handsomebrick]

That phone call one drives me nuts. If you want to protect yourself from wiretappers then you should hide your identity, not the secret itself, they know that already. Or why not just tell the hero face to face, like a sane person.

[@zapdog_]

One thing that pisses me off to no end is when people use “has” for a plural. “The packages has arrived” v.s. “The packages have arrived”

[@fakebeliever]

The problem is that movies are written to be reflective of vernacular, of everyday speech. Unless the characters in the movie are dogmatic and precise, they certainly shouldn't be written that way, and should be written the way they would speak normally- blemishes and all- and certainly not imprisoned by the meticulousness of intellectual accuracy. So while Ellison is correct regarding neanderTals - although an anthropologist would often adjust to the "THal" version when speaking to laymen to avoid confusion - the remaining examples (like "cake") would depend on if the character would be the type of person to make that mistake or not. The rest of his examples are cliches or tropes of hack writing; he should be careful while being a cranky old codger, as his own writing isn't devoid of such excesses.

[@christianwatt2924]

so anthropologists pronounce neanderthal wrong in real life too? and no they would not mispronounce something gust to appeal to people who cant speak properly, while I agree one should practice as they preach

[@BlacKnightRising]

I always knew there was something asinine about 'you can't have your cake and eat it to' there you go hehe

[@StopFear]

Was this on a show or a tv special, or some tape he produced?

[@humanencountersthelawsofth87]

He did interstitials on Sci-Fi Channel from 1993-1996 called Harlan Ellison's Watching. 96 segments were produced about 60 something of them have been found.

[@Hibernicus1968]

It was a show on the Sci Fi Channel back in the mid-90s called "Sci Fi Buzz." It came on Sunday mornings. I remember because I was working as a hotel desk clerk, in an oceanfront hotel in Virginia Beach, and I always had the Sunday morning shift. I used to watch this when it came on after reruns of the 1980s iteration of "Ripley's Believe It or Not" hosted by Jack Palance. Ellison had little three or four minute spots on that show, where he ranted on a variety of topics. He was always entertaining.

[@greyeyed123]

That last one has been bother me for years, and now I can eat my cake and have it too.

[@JeffersonDinedAlone]

Another one which must annoy Ellison because of its blatant ignorance as much as it annoys me is when apathetic idiots use the phrase "very unique". There is no such thing; it does not exist. Something is either unique, or it is not. There are not varying degrees of uniqueness.

[@MBOmnis]

So for the "just like that" part, should the response be "just like this" (since it's an imaginary demonstration of the person doing it) or there shouldn't be a response at all? :p

[@MultiSmartass1]

Some people may not care for Ellison's verbal and logical nitpicking here. However, when it comes to criticisms of Ellisons' critique, I couldnt care less. LOL.

[@Rosbif48]

2:22 - Jesus, I hope no one ever showed him Tommy Cooper!

[@fayeSunshine48]

i like the cake one :)

[@jambec144]

Why can't I have my cake and eat it too? In what way would I want to 'have' my cake, if not to eat? Am I just going to look at it? I've never understood that expression.

[@ebalbask]

Harlan actually says this himself in his Tomorrow interview.

[@amyt2035]

It means you can't have it both ways. If you eat the cake, you don't have it anymore. If you don't eat the cake, you still have it. The best way to grasp the concept would be thinking about those realistic fancy cakes that take bakers a lot of time and skill to make - you want to eat it but you also want to keep it and admire it. Unfortunately you can't be greedy so you have to choose one or the other.

[@jambec144]

@@amyt2035 Yes, as I suggested, you could 'have' your cake "just to look at it." But when someone asks to 'have' a piece of cake, what's the far more plausible interpretation? The expression only makes sense if you invoke an odd circumstance. It therefore fails to convey a common dilemma.

[@SaintSwibbens]

Where did all of these come from?

[@Teabonesteak]

You know, if only more people would have consulted guys like Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov when it comes to nuances of grammar in scripts and feasibility of plot concepts then TV and movies wouldn't suck so bad as they do do now.

[@johnrobinson4445]

Wikipedia, at least, doesn't fully agree with him about the cake one.

[@johnrobinson4445]

"An early recording of the phrase is in a letter on 14 March 1538 from Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, to Thomas Cromwell, as "a man can not have his cake and eat his cake"."

[@j_freed]

^ Unclear. I could care less would mean you do care somewhat VS I could not care less which means you do not care even somewhat. I truly hate the exceptionally inane 'for all intensive purposes...' However, taking the cake having/eating dilemma it is still logically possible to have two cakes (paradigm of abundance) OR - to transfer one-half the molecular mass of the one cake to another plate in what would appear to be an identical cake. Saw it on Star Trek > Evil Kirk and Good Kirk... question is, which is the good cake? Anyway... who the hell keeps cake just to have while simultaneously wishing they could eat it. I assume we're gluttons who regret not delaying our pleasures to some future time, even though that future decision to eat it would be presumably no different in outcome than eating the cake now. Deep!

[@colt5189]

Harlan didn't pronounce "minutia" correctly for years. haha.

[@stevejordan7275]

There are still places in Hollywood where nothing will grow because some joker pushed his buttons.

[@erinrising2799]

I think I saw this rant when it originally aired, the Neanderthal thing still aggravates me. The other day I started to watch an archaeology video and the presenter flippantly said "however its pronounced" and then repeatedly said it wrong. I unsubscribed

[@eveningtsar]

@DavidsonCarl Always thought it was a dumb phrase.

[@stephenwestcole]

He didn't mention zoology!

[@conniecarroll7222]

I don't believe they taught us that in English class...maybe they did.

[@monczkam]

I agree with most of what he says, but I always thought "I couldn't care less" means that you don't care at all (i.e. you are at the lowest bound of your caring).

[@josawesome1]

monczkam That is what it means. He's saying "i could care less" is incorrect because that means that you care more than not caring st all

[@sandorrclegane2307]

lmao petty and nitpicky but funny to watch

[@Ντόλης]

Ποιητική Αηδία

[@Cabochon1360]

The pronunciation of "Neanderthal" in the scientific world has gone back and forth (true of a lot of words originating in one language, then used in another). Currently, it seems to be okay to use the "th" sound. I find the cliches a lot more annoying. Or simple factual errors that should never make it all the way to the screen. F'r instance, there was a crappy movie based on Dean Koontz's crappy novel called "Phantoms", in which they said a human brain weighs six pounds. (It weighs three pounds.) Somehow that error made it from Koontz's own brain, to his submission draft of the novel, through the editorial process, through proofreading, through a couple of editions, then into the screenplay adaptation, through all the production work, out of the mouth of an actor, and through the final edit. Nobody along the way knew this basic fact that an eight-grader should know.

[@ryanjbou]

Neanderthal is german, and in german it's pronounced "tall" not "thall" end of discussion

[@RichardJonesArtist]

Superwolf1337 Actually, the "a" in "thal" is pronounced the way you would use it in "half" (Queen's English). Not as short as "pal" and certainly not the "awe" sound of "tall". End of discussion!

[@williamavitt8264]

Superwolf1337 hold on, so wait. You want to throw a fit over the hard T sound, because that's the German pronunciation, yet when someone corrects YOU on the proper A sound, well then it becomes nitpicking. You're a fucking douche. And THAT is the end of the discussion.

[@johnrobinson4445]

Harlan is not a German speaker. Now the discussion is really ended.

[@christianwatt2924]

@@williamavitt8264 there is no "proper" sound for a vowel -.- thats the point of vowels, their pronunciation changes depending on lots of variables

[@LfunkeyA]

homie needs to relax, not the people's fault that you don't pronounce what you write. if it's neanderTAL, why spell it neanderTHAL? if it's Dr. JAYkyll, why spell it JEkyll? Some languages make sense between writing and speaking, some don't, like most Western languages honestly.

[@psf334]

except now, people leave their lights on all the time in real life because many cars have timers which turn the lights out automatically. so that one's out. if you pronounce jeckyll (sp?) and neanderthal "correctly," people will think you're an ass, because what might be correct is not considered that today. and it's the zeitgeist of popular opinion that determine these things, not whether it's technically correct.

[@silvergalaxie]

the spelling of neanderthal is confusing then.

[@Kikilang60]

Sounds like every old fart.

[@leighfoulkes7297]

Sorry but I can't stand grammar police. You shouldn't write it how some intellectual professor says is the correct way but rather, how people speak it in real life. That goes for speaking in movies too.