by Jim Whitehouse
Something just occurred to me.
Back in my youth, I was on a track team. I was a shot putter. I put the shot. I practiced putting the shot.
Later, I took up golf, which swallowed me whole and spit me out. In addition to being a driver and a chipper, I was a putter. I used a putter. I putted the ball into the hole (usually after about 5 tries.) I practiced putting.
Put rhymes with soot. Putt rhymes with gut.
Since I’m easily amused, I had to look up the history of “put” as relating to track and “putt” as to golf.
Doggone it! It’s the same history. Right out of Scotland. “Put”–meaning to push.
Sure enough, when on the golf green you are essentially pushing the ball. While in a track meet, you are pushing, not throwing, the big, heavy metal ball.
Given all that, we should pronounce put and putt the same.
Now why, you ask, am I boring you with all this trivia?
Mostly to see how long it will take my cousin, Mr. Bill, to resolve the conflict. He is fascinated with the English language and its proper use. He seeks out its oddities. I’m wondering if he has ever considered the put putt controversy?
I know from past conversations he has considered consider, an interesting word that is derived from the practice of observing stars and means to think about. I know he has tackled the controversy of controversy as pronounced in the United Kingdom (con-TRAH-versy) versus here in the good old US of A (CON-tro-versy).
Mr. Bill and I have spent many an interesting hour discussing words, phrases, grammar and syntax, with me usually in the role of student while he serves as the much better educated teacher.
We do have differences of opinions, which is what keeps us both awake while debating words, phrases, grammar, punctuation and syntax. I stand on the liberal side of the aisle when it comes to communication. If someone says to me, “I ain’t got no firewood” I understand that the poor soul has no firewood.
Mr. Bill, on the other hand, while understanding the intent of the woodless speaker, will explain that the double negative means the woodless speaker is actually in possession of a log or two. He will also point out the tortious use of the word ain’t and may also criticize the colloquial use of got.
I must say that while I agree with him on the technicalities (I mean, really– America’s Got Talent? Please, Television, change it to America Has Talent), I have to defend my own sloppy use of the language. I have, for example, great reverence for the efficient word IDA. “Ida been there if I hadn’t run out of gas.”
So how did Mr. Bill and I, who have been very close all of our lives, end up standing on different soapboxes?
I had excellent English teachers in high school and college. My mother, ably backed up by my father, was a grammar enforcer until she died in her nineties, never once hesitating to correct any misuse of the language.
Mr. Bill likewise had parents who knew and used The King’s English, American style. He, too, had excellent teachers, particularly while attending a school perched atop a Swiss Alp.
The question of the source of our different outlooks will be discussed when he calls me to correct the errors in this column, which I will welcome.
