September 3rd 2010    Tim Candler

    September third is Idiot Day.  Not universally celebrated, nor does it appear on the calendar.   Yet Idiot Day celebrates those words in grammar that fall into the category of 'conjunction'.    The 'and', the 'but', the 'because' and so on through the list of words that connect clauses, sentences and phrases.

    Sometime ago there was a debate amongst those of us who celebrate Idiot Day.   We considered giving our special day a title more conducive to the general imagination.   Oddly this followed contact between our group and a manufacturer of greeting cards.  Their representative dismissed out of hand our well designed "Happy Idiot Day" card.  They thought the idea frail.  Which of course outraged us, sent us sulking into the back rooms of thinking, out of which emerged "Happy, Happy Day."

   For myself, I thought "Happy, Happy Day" imbecilic, and did not hesitate to make my feelings known.   Keen in my mind was the knowledge of September the third 1939 as the day upon which Britain and France declared war on Germany.

   But as it was pointed out to me, conjunctions reflect narrative and without them language would lose its circles.  Dull it would become and fewer and fewer words would be shared, because fewer and fewer words would be understood.

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