Grammarian’s Report – David Snowman
Well thank goodness for spell and grammar checkers because this is a pretty tough gig, Especially for those of us who failed plasticine at primary school! ( Hmm, is gig a real word me wonders??)
The grammarians’ role is twofold,
Firstly, to introduce a new word to members for the opportunity to use that word in each members speaking time during the meeting, Secondly, to report or comment on the general use of English during the meeting.
Special praise goes to those who are able to include these words in their prepared speeches, whilst the rest of us fumble around in our impromptu speaking attempts during table topics or the more serious evaluations to include the word of the day.
For example today’s word was “Algedonic” which means pertaining to pleasure and pain, simultaneously. As grammarian, today’s meeting was in fact somewhat Algedonic for me as I had great pleasure in presenting this word to the meeting however it was somewhat painful realising that only a few participants managed to incorporate the word during their speaking roles!
Nevertheless there are other grammatical issues to be considered, use of interesting phrases, metaphors, Oxymoron’s, Tautology (no that’s not taunting members, why don’t you look it up?) as well as the usual ums and ahs that are incorporated in people speaking whilst people take a few milliseconds to think. All in all you have to be listening intently to what people are saying which is a wonderful skill to learn and utilise either in business or socially, I’ve heard it said that we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them in that ratio!