A snippet of what I heard two people talking yesterday:
“It doesn’t sound right.”
“Yeah, but it is GRAMMATICALLY correct.”

The thing about grammar I think most people do not seem to get is (I think that is the case, although it might not be at all and most people already figure this out at some point or the other), it is something fleshed out of the language’s daily existence and usage in the real world. The language does keep constantly evolving and a language as beastly as the English tongue is simply unimaginable to capture in any formal structure. That is not to say I believe the English language is devoid of any rules whatsoever but I have come to really lose faith in any attempts to capture it in any grammar. The reason I could give is simply this: for every rule that one devises, a clever writer/speaker somewhere is bound to break them, if not today then surely tomorrow. Tomorrow keeps coming. The English language is used by millions of communities worldwide who each bring their own flavor to the tongue in either of these two ways:

1. Local use: Usage of an evolved English highly influenced by the local language.

2. Exporting it back to the natives: Through immigration, these local flavors usually find their way back to the melting point communities where English is really spoken as a first language, usually Europe or North America but not limited to these.

The question thus that only remains is this: how to gracefully break a language’s rules and when to break them. Exploit them. I am particularly interested in the humor that a comedian might particularly use to break our preconceptions and break grammar at the same time.

I went walking through the streets of Vile Parle last night with my girlfriend. There is a pav-bhaji place west of the station we were craving to have food at for dinner. For reasons unimportant we got into a street we had no requirement to get into and stumbled upon this fabulous dairy selling aamras by the kilo. It’s summer and we hadn’t had aamras the entire season. Hell, I haven’t even had a single mango. We bought ourselves two kilos of it. One for immediate consumption, one for friends. We got a complimentary pack of ice-cream with it. Now the weird thing about this scenario is it was my idea to buy some for an office friend who occasionally has got us gifts in the past. The reason it is weird is owing to my complete usual lack of any social skills when it comes to matters such as these. Well, I am learning. Social life did always paralyze me. For instance, this is what I got into thinking immediately after the buying for this friend was done. How does one go give him the gift? What does one say, what should one’s face express and the like. Left that conundrum to my girlfriend, more skilled in these matters.

See you tommorow,
Avi.