I have some more songs to talk about (see yesterday's blog). Neil Diamond wrote terrific songs and I actually love his oh-so-deliberate grammatical mistake in one: "Songs I sang to you/Songs I brang to you." I love it! I have heard singers correcting the verb from brang to brought, but of course that doesn't rhyme. In this case I think the editor is wrong.

My next song is not wrong but its rendition reveals not only the fussiness on the part of the performer but also the complete misunderstanding of the composer's intention. In this case, the composer is also the lyricist, the great, witty, urbane, brilliant Cole Porter. His song "The Lady is a Tramp" is ironic. The lady (in "Pal Joey") sings about her behaviour that causes others to label her a tramp. In fact, her "sins" indicate what a genuine person she is. Here are a couple of examples:

"Don't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls" - that is, she doesn't try to show off.

"Don't dish the gab with the rest of the girls" - that is, she's not a gossip.

I heard a version of this song performed by Frank Sinatra who changed the title to "The Lady is a Champ" He or the "translator" didn't trust the audience to get the point., so they spelled it out.

I do think editors have to be very careful.

I just met some new-to-me people in a new-to-me organization. I was invited to join WEN for breakfast and it was an enjoyable experience. You know what the little girl said: A stranger is a friend I haven't met yet." (I actually doubt a little girl said that; it's far too profound.) WEN is the acronym for the Writers and Editors Network. I didn't see it written so I don't know if there is an apostrophe on W and E. Someone will tell me. They're all compulsive, like me, not to say anal retentive, about correct grammar. Also very careful. I threw some of my pet peeves at my table companions and they were very slow to answer. (I neglected to hand them a blue pencil.) Here are my questions, already familiar to some bloggers: lie versus lay? may or might? would and should? career/careen?

I find myself incapable of seeing, reading, hearing anything without automatically editing/correcting it, even songs. You know the love song from Camelot, by Lerner and Loewe: "If ever I would leave you". I can't hear it without wincing. "If ever I SHOULD leave you" is, of course, the correct form of the conditional verb. Well, we have to forgive Lerner. Apparently he took a long time slaving over his lyrics., and that's not the only mistake he ever made. I quote something from his biography (on Google);

In a 1979 interview on NPR's All Things Considered, Lerner went into some depth about his lyrics for My Fair Lady. Professor Henry Higgins sings, "Look at her, a prisoner of the gutters / Condemned by every syllable she utters / By right she should be taken out and hung / For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue." Lerner said he knew the lyric used incorrect grammar for the sake of a rhyme. He was later approached about it by another famous lyricist:

"I thought, oh well, maybe nobody will notice it, but not at all. Two nights after it opened, I ran into Noël Coward in a restaurant, and he walked over and he said, "Dear boy, it is hanged, not hung." I said, "Oh, Noel, I know it, I know it! You know, shut up!" So, and there's another, "Than to ever let a woman in my life." It should be, "as to ever let a woman in my life," but it just didn't sing well."

Me again: well, "to ever let" is splitting an infinitive. This is a whole new area of exploration. More anon.