The Grammarosaurus

The Grammarosaurus was a toned-down, less colorful cousin of the late Floccinaucinihilipilisaurus. He was much quieter and a kind of wispy, gray, eerie creature with black slits for eyes. He padded around silently, lurking hideously in the shadows where his cousin would have stomped and roared. He spoke in a serpentine, raspy whisper with not a little malice in its undertones.

The Grammarosaurus had rather less obscure origins than his cousin did. He had been a well-kept secret, developed in a series of lab experiments paid for by the late William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White, to continue their work after they had gone. Scientists had bandied about the term "Strunkenwhite" as a possible name for the beast, but in the end, "the Grammarosaurus" stuck, and "Strunkenwhite" remained a little-known nickname, rather like Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader or Tom Riddle to Lord Voldemort. The difference being, of course, that both of the above had not always been evil, but scientists had created the Grammarosaurus purely for wreaking havoc.

One should also note that the Floccinaucinihilipilisaurus was, for all his bellowing and rampaging, still rather lovable. The Grammarosaurus was not. He was pure evil. His creators had specifically genetically modified him to meet that purpose.

After many, many failed attempts, Strunk and White's scientists had tinkered, fiddled, and adjusted until they were satisfied with their results, and they released the Grammarosaurus to perpetrate outrages as he would.

He did indeed. He slipped around the countryside, attacking when people least expected it. Perhaps "attacking" was not the best word, for he was very subtle. He sneaked up behind ungrammatical nincompoops, hissed at them, corrected their grammar, and then inhaled them.

Yes, he inhaled them, as if they were clouds of smoke and not people. Never mind how such a thing was physically possible. It violated the laws of physics that there was such a monster in the first place, never mind how he subsisted.

The Grammarosaurus arrived in Texas a few months after its late cousin. He wafted into a high school gym one day via the air ducts and began sniffing around. 'Hmm,' he thought to himself. 'This is curious. A mixture of intelligence and stupidity, but mostly stupidity, abounds here. I wonder what's happening?'

Unbeknownst to the monster, a school assembly was in progress, which all students were required to attend, so a veritable smorgasbord awaited him. He hung back for a few moments, remaining undetected beneath the bleachers and waiting to strike.

Meanwhile, two boys and a girl huddled together at one end of the bleachers just above the monster. They spoke in conspiratorial whispers, wondering if they could somehow escape and go home early.

"Well," suggested the girl, named Lauren, "I guess we could make a run for it."

"No," said one of the guys, Aron, with a shake of his head. "Too obvious. We'd get caught."

"Pity we couldn't think of something earlier," added the other, called Justin. "Seriously, we've got to start planning these things."

The Grammarosaurus, lurking just underneath the trio, paid no attention. He didn't even listen for grammatical errors; his creators had genetically engineered him to know automatically when someone was committing a heinous solecism.

"We need a distraction," Justin was saying. "God! Why don't we ever plan these things?!"

"Maybe next time we could plant some explosives?" suggested Aron, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip.

"No. We'd just get in trouble," replied Justin. "We need a less . . . against-the-rules distraction."

"Shame the Floccinaucinihilipilisaurus isn't around anymore," Lauren said. At this, the Grammarosaurus abruptly snapped his neck upwards with a small grunt of recognition. " . . . What was that?"

"No idea," answered Justin.

" . . . I miss the Floccinaucinihilipilisaurus," Aron said wistfully. "He was . . . useful. Killing stupid people is a highly desirable trait in an animal, I believe." At this, the Grammarosaurus smiled inwardly, resolving he must spare those three, no matter what happened.

Then the principal began to speak, and, after one last look upwards at the unhappy trio, the Grammarosaurus peered out from beneath the bleachers, listening intently. If one knew he were there, it would have been quite obvious to spot the blinking eyes visible behind Justin's knees, but as it was, he was perfectly hidden. His intelligent, impatient dark eyes never left the principal as he commenced speaking:

"Good afternoon, students," he began creatively. "As you all know, we are gathered here to review several additions to the dress code." Aron, Justin, and Lauren collectively rolled their eyes and grumbled obscenities about the unnecessariness of the dress code.

Several moments later, the trio had given up ragging on the principal's speech and zoned out. Meanwhile, the principal was rapidly approaching his last moments of life, but of course he didn't know that; nobody did. If Aron, Justin, and Lauren had, they would have stood up and cheered.

"All students are prohibited from wearing any part of a military uniform on campus," the principal was saying. "Anyone that disobeys—"

At that moment, the Grammarosaurus rumbled ominously from beneath the bleachers, snapping the trio out of their reverie. They exchanged nervous glances but remained silent. Then they watched in shock as they monster ghostily walked through the bleachers and up to the principal.

"You solecistic twit," the Grammarosaurus hissed, "it's 'anyone who . . . !'" With that, he inhaled the principal, to the horrified dismay of everyone except Aron, Justin, and Lauren, who stood up and cheered.

Someone sitting near the trio took exception to their tactlessness. He turned to them and said,

"Hey, now! That ain't cool . . . ." Before he could finish, the Grammarosaurus had inhaled him from across the room.

"Wow," remarked Lauren as they watched, as if in slow motion, the hapless solecizer disappear. "I think, if we're going to survive this, we need to be careful."

"Yeah," agreed Justin. "We've got to—" He broke off uncertainly, and Aron and Lauren threw him agonized glances, unsure if "have got" were grammatically incorrect.

They needn't have worried, for, even if it had been incorrect, the Grammarosaurus would not have killed them. Nevertheless, there was a brief moment of panic as the monster slowly approached them. Justin froze in terror. Aron and Lauren twitched nervously, trying to decided whether to defend their friend or flee.

Before they had a chance to decide, the monster addressed them:

"'Have got,' my young friends, is tautological, but it is not grammatically incorrect." The trio relaxed the tiniest fraction. "Be careful," he snapped before wafting away. Justin heaved such a huge sigh of relief that he almost fell off the bleachers.

"Ahem," Aron said. "I think we may as well go home now."

"Agreed," Justin said wholeheartedly. "By the way, what does 'tautological' mean?"

"It means 'redundant,'" Lauren told him. "Since 'have' and 'got' mean essentially the same thing, you don't need to use both. Luckily for you, though, it's not actually wrong."

" . . . How do you know all that?" Justin asked. Lauren picked up her backpack, stood up, and shrugged.

"Come on," she replied. "Let's go home. . . . You know English has always been my best subject."

"Remember her Catcher in the Rye book reports?" Aron asked Justin, who only nodded.

The two guys remained silent and followed Lauren out of the gym. The rest of the students did so also.

The students filed toward the exits in still-stunned silence, but one girl at least had the presence of mind to wonder where the monster had gone. Just as she exited the gymnasium, she glanced around her and pondered aloud to no one in particular,

"Where's the monster at?" Lauren visibly flinched and stopped dead in her tracks, causing Aron and Justin to run into her.

"What—?" Justin began, but Lauren held up a hand to stop him. She turned around slowly to look at the girl, and Aron and Justin followed suit.

"Here I am," came a familiar hiss from somewhere above them. Everyone stopped and looked for the monster.

"There he is!" someone shouted, pointing up at the roof.

Indeed, the Grammarosaurus was perched just overhead, glaring down at the girl who'd spoken previously.

"Do not end sentences with prepositions," he admonished, and with one agonized squeal, the girl was gone.

Aron, Justin, and Lauren shrugged at each other and walked silently home, ignoring the pandemonium behind them.

School authorities cancelled classes the next day, to the immense relief of the trio. They met for a picnic in the park close to the school to discuss what had happened.

"Well," Lauren began, sipping at her tea, "I think it's . . . well, maybe not wonderful, but a welcome relief."

"I'll say," agreed Aron. "Fewer stupid people and no class; what more could you want?"

"A little reassurance that I'm not going to be eaten myself," griped Justin. The other two couldn't help but nod at that.

"I wonder . . . " Lauren pondered.

"What?" inquired Aron.

" . . . How can we kill this monster?"

"Seriously?" asked Justin.

"Yeah. I mean, it's a lot easier to make a grammatical blunder than it is to use long words . . . or something like that."

"I think I know what you mean," said Aron, "but I don't have a clue what to do."

"Well, short words killed the Floccinaucinihilipilisaurus," suggested Justin. "That book store employee surrounded herself with dictionaries and thesauri for protection, remember?"

"Are you suggesting that bad grammar might kill . . . this thing?" Lauren asked.

"Yeah," replied Justin. "We just need a lot of grammar books and things for protection."

"'We'?" Aron asked suspiciously.

"Yes,' we,'" Justin snapped. "I'm not doing this alone." Lauren raised her eyebrows a little but said nothing.

Justin prattled on about how they could stop the monster. Meanwhile, Aron and Lauren fidgeted nervously, trying to decide how they could weasel out of involvement. Suddenly, Lauren got an idea.

"Aha!" she shrieked, causing both boys to jump and Justin to cease speaking and glare at her. "That is it!" she continued, ignoring them. "Come on, let's go!" She stood up and began hastily repacking the picnic supplies.

"What is 'it'?" queried Justin grumpily, still upset over the interruption.

"Oh, there's no time for that now!" Lauren cried, impatiently waving at them. She snatched their plastic cups from them over numerous loud protests, unceremoniously dumped the contents onto the grass, and stuffed them into the picnic basket. She then ripped the picnic blanket out from under the guys, wadded it up, and stuffed it into the basket. She forced the lid closed, ignoring the ominous cracks from within it.

"What are you doing?" demanded Justin.

"We're off! To the nearest video store!" cried Lauren, gesturing wildly and trying not to lose her balance. Her hair flew in front of her face, which she ignored. The guys stared but, seeing no choice, followed her.

They arrived at a local video store several minutes later. Aron and Justin trailed after Lauren as she charged ahead, making a beeline for the sci-fi section, ignoring the "May I help you?" from an employee. Aron and Justin shrugged apologetically, said nothing, and exchanged confused glances as Lauren began pawing through the titles.

"Aha!" she cried, ripping one out, apparently at random. She held it up triumphantly, half-consciously shook her hair out of her face, and shouted, "This is it!" She shoved it at Aron and Justin, who stared and chorused,

"'Star Trek'?"

"Yes! Of course! Don't you see?"

Aron and Justin exchanged worried looks and shook their heads. Lauren made a frustrated noise, waved them off, and rushed to the checkout counter.

After impatiently paying the rental fee, Lauren raced out of the store.

"Come on, guys!" she called over her shoulder.

"Where are we going?" Aron asked as he and Justin ran to catch up with her.

"To school, duh!" she shouted.

"But whhhyyyyy?" whined the guys, beginning to lag behind.

Lauren stopped short and turned around.

"Because," she said, "we need to put this tape in one of the library VCRs and cue it up so it's ready to go first thing tomorrow morning."

Aron and Justin looked at her blankly. There was a long pause, and then Aron said,

"But the school's closed."

Lauren looked suspiciously as though she'd forgotten that detail, for she shifted uncertainly. Then she shrugged it off and replied,

"So we'll just have to break in."

"What?" Justin screeched.

"Yes, of course!" Lauren snapped, turning around and resuming her previous course. "We probably would have had to do it anyway. I mean, they wouldn't let mere students take out a VCR. Still, it's got to b—er—I mean, it must be done!"

"What 'must be done'?" Aron and Justin chorused.

"Split infinitives!" Lauren cried as though it were obvious. Aron and Justin looked at each other blankly.

"What the hell?" Justin asked Aron, who only shrugged.

They followed Lauren to the school, where they found a side entrance conveniently unlocked. After a preliminary check to make sure they were alone, they entered the library.

"Now," Lauren began, looking around the room, "where do they keep the TVs?"

"Back there would be my guess," Aron said, pointing at a door labeled "multimedia."

" . . . That looks locked," Lauren said. Justin rolled his eyes and snorted.

"No shit."

"Well, come on," Lauren continued, unperturbed. "You guys know how to pick locks, right?"

Aron and Justin looked at each other uncertainly.

"Uh, Lauren," Aron hesitated.

"Come on!"

"Fine."

After ten minutes of impatient (on Lauren's part) fiddling, the large, heavy door swung open. The trio entered and looked around. Lauren selected a TV and VCR on a cart and pushed the cart out of the room. The guys followed and closed the door behind them.

The trio wheeled the cart down the halls until they reached a large, open room known as the Commons. Lauren unwound the power cord all the way, plugged it in, and pushed the cart as far out into the middle room as she could. Then she turned on the TV and VCR, inserted the tape, and turned the volume all the way up. The she turned the TV and VCR off.

"Okay, guys," she said, turning to them. "We're done here. Let's go home."

"What?" asked Aron. Lauren rolled her eyes and huffed,

"Well, there's nothing more we can do today. We'll just have to wait until tomorrow morning." Bewildered, the guys trailed after Lauren as she exited the building and headed home.

The following morning, Lauren made sure she and the guys were first on campus. Arriving just before seven a.m., she shoved the guys into the Commons and turned on the TV and VCR.

"Now what?" Justin asked.

"We wait."

"For what?" Aron inquired.

"For students. Duh. With more students will come more grammatical errors, and with grammatical errors will come the monster. Then we play the tape." Aron and Justin looked as though they still didn't understand; Lauren looked as though she didn't care.

According to plan, students began on filing in. They looked curiously at the TV but said nothing. To make sure nobody interfered, Lauren had planted Justin at the TV's plug and Aron behind the TV. Lauren herself stood in front of the TV, ready to hit "play" when the time came.

Soon enough, just as predicted, the Grammarosaurus arrived on the scene.

"I did good on my Spanish test," some girl was saying. From nowhere, the monster materialized and hissed,

"You would not do well on an English test." He inhaled her at once. Lauren then pressed "play" on the VCR and moved aside, motioning for Aron to do the same.

"Space, the final frontier," boomed forth. "These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before . . . ."

"A split infinitive!" roared the monster. He spun around and glowered fiercely at the television set. He then inhaled—but nothing happened.

That is to say, he attempted to inhale, but he failed. The television set shifted slightly but remained in place, causing the Grammarosaurus to try even harder. The results, for him, were disastrous.

Aron, Justin, Lauren, and the other students watched as the monster huffed and snorted and desperately willed the television set to perish, but to no avail. He met with some success, which seemed to encourage him, but falsely so, for he promptly began to choke.

Everyone watched as the Grammarosaurus asphyxiated. At last, with a spectacular blue flash, he managed to choke and electrocute himself. Finally, he faded away, leaving only the mangled TV behind.

"Wow," Lauren said. "I'd forgotten that thing was plugged in."

" . . . So what, exactly, was that about?" Justin asked, gingerly stepping over the charred remains of the television set.

"I told you. Split infinitives," Lauren explained. Seeing that this might not be enough, she added, "Oh, fine. Let's go to the library. It might make more sense then." Aron and Justin followed her into the library, where she led them to the unabridged dictionary on the stand. She flipped to a page near the end and read aloud,

"'Split infinitive. . . . An expression in which there is a word or phrase, [especially] an adverb or adverbial phrase, between to and its accompanying verb form in an infinitive, as in to readily understand. . . . Usage. The "rule" against placing a word, especially an adverb, between to and the verb in an English infinitive (To really understand a language, you have to stay in a place where it is spoken) is based on an analogy with Latin, in which infinitives are only one word and hence cannot be "split." The modeling of English style on Latin has in the past often been considered the epitome of good writing; the injunction against splitting the English infinitive is an example of the misguided application of this notion. Criticism of the split infinitive was especially strong in 19th-century usage guides. Nothing in the history of the infinitive in English, however, supports the so-called rule, and in many sentences, as in the example above, the only natural place for the modifying adverb is between to and the verb (To really learn . . .). Many modern speakers and writers depend on their ear for a natural sentence rather than on an arbitrary rule. Writers who ordinarily prefer not to split an infinitive will occasionally do so, to avoid awkward or stilted language.'"

" . . . So what does all that mean?" Aron asked.

"The monster got hung up on a useless rule," Lauren summed up. "Literally. 'Star Trek' is famous for that 'to boldly go,' but of course a TV set doesn't work the same way a human does, so he couldn't just inhale it. . . . I didn't even plan on the electrocution; that was pretty cool." Aron and Justin had to agree with that. "Anyway," Lauren continued, "the point is, there's a stupid, obscure grammar rule that's not really even a rule, but that didn't matter to the monster, and he choked on it."

So for the second time in their high school careers, the trio had witnessed a bizarre spectacle involving a dinosaur-like beast and technicalities of the English language. Unlike last time, however, this time they'd actually helped to eradicate it.

Even though Aron, Justin, and Lauren had undoubtedly helped to save humankind, however, they still had to repay the video store for the 'Star Trek' tape.