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The year was 1948. All American adults were happily married and spoke perfectly proper English, never straying from traditional usage or grammatical proscriptions. Or at least that's what everyone thought.

Then along came the bow-tied lexicologist Alfred C. Whimsy, who became the first trained scientist to interview thousands of Americans from all talks of life about their lifelong verbal habits.

To elicit honest responses and put his subjects at ease, Whimsy asked them not WHETHER they had engaged in non-standard verbal practices, but WHEN they began doing so. Smart move.

His stunning report based on this research, "Lexical Behavior in the American Male and Female," demolished Victorian misperceptions and revealed what people really said and wrote behind closed doors.

Here, made public for the first time, is the startling verbatim transcript of one of his interviews:

Dr. Whimsy: When did you dangle your first participle?

Subject #10488: Well, Doc, it actually happened accidentally. One day I was writing the sentence, "I was wandering down the path when a bear jumped out at me," and thought it would be more "clever" to write, "Wandering down the path, a bear jumped out at me."

Silly me. I didn't realize it wasn't clear whether it was the bear or I who was wandering down the path. By the time I was 16, I was dangling participles at least two or three times a week.

Dr. Whimsy: Did this ever interfere with your practice of splitting of infinitives?

Subject #10488: Geez, I was afraid you were going to bring that up. As a teenager, I got into "Star Trek" and must have fallen under the influence of the slogan that introduced each episode: "To boldly go where no man has gone before."

Pretty soon I was writing and saying phrases like "to speedily arrive" and "to greedily consume." It finally reached the point where my parents threatened to permanently unplug the TV.

Dr. Whimsy: All this while you were ending sentences with prepositions?

Subject #10488: Why did you bring a subject I thought I could get out of up for? Initially, it wasn't something I was conscious of. Then, on my 18th birthday, I received a gag gift full of prepositions and suddenly realized what they were for.

Dr. Whimsy: As you grew older, how did you deal with alluring seductions by double negatives?

Subject #10488: It wasn't nothing to me, and back then I couldn't hardly wait to discuss it, but I won't never make the mistake of talking about something so personal no more.

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Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. His book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

Copyright 2026 Creators Syndicate Inc.