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A LIVING THING

NARRATOR: 

All is quiet throughout the house. Then…the crunch of gravel.  Daddy’s home, Daddy’s home! Daphne and Laurel stand on the front porch, cold bare feet, watching Daddy lift an enormous book from the dark trunk of the car, like a doctor delivering a baby. The biggest book imaginable! 

 The biggest book imaginable is placed on a stand, open, each side swelling like a wave in the ocean, the cliff of compressed pages notched with steps the size of a fingertip, each notch labeled with letters of the alphabet. This is the night the Dictionary arrives.  

Laurel and Daphne are never the same. 

Their mother loves Laurel and Daphne the way you love the birds in the trees: birds singing, fluttering, colors flashing just out of reach. They are beautiful and symmetrical as origami, identical twins with their gigantic Dictionary, as busy as birds. And just as alien. 

Then on a gray and ominous afternoon, Daphne suddenly turns an alien shade of pink that is really a shade of green. Then Laurel starts feeling a little green herself …   

In this next scene, the girls are eleven-and-a-half years old (though their speaking voices, oddly, have not changed a whit). Like little Rip Van Winkles, they open their fevered eyes to a new world – Why, the girls have drifted into that wondrous yet horrific time known as the 2000s!  

The scene includes cameos by word nerds of the present day—bloggers, authors, and podcast hosts.  

The music for the song features a guest musician: stride piano phenom Stephanie Trick. 

A LIVING THING 

Music, Nan Schwartz/Lyrics, Lorraine Feather 

From the musical The Grammarians 

Based on the novel by Cathleen Schine 

DAPHNE [reading from her notebook]: 

“CREPUSCULE noun [Latin, a little burst or break of light, or broken light.] Twilight; the light of the morning from the first dawn to sunrise, and of the evening from sunset to darkness. It is occasioned by the refraction of the sun’s rays.”—Webster’s Dictionary, 1828. 

LAUREL: Use it in a sentence. 

DAPHNE: Thelonious Monk wrote the song “Crepuscule with Nellie” for his wife Nellie in 1957. 

LAUREL: That’s a terrible example because it doesn’t show you the meaning of the word. 

DAPHNE: Get bent. 

SALLY: Darling, the girls have measles. 

ARTHUR: Oh brother. Are they all right? 

SALLY: Yes, just spotty and feverish. I’m going to check on them in a minute. 

Have you ever noticed how they go to sleep holding hands in the little space between their beds? They love each other so much.  

People always stare at them when we’re out walking, and it embarrasses them, as if there were something wrong with them. 

ARTHUR: They are math. They are perfection. 

RANDY [in Rod Serling voice]Daphne and Laurel Wolfe, two word-obsessed and currently morbillivirus-infected identical twins living in Westchester in the 1960s, lie in their twin beds with the curtains drawn. Even in the dim light, they can see that the red spots do not occur on the same places on their otherwise identical bodies and faces. They conclude, with the sharp intelligence of children, that they are not symmetrical in sickness. It seems profound. And sad. And it is a lesson soon to become even more meaningful to the girls, as a fever dream transports them to a strange realm that dangles like a dangling participle above the Hudson Valley, in a county that can’t be located on any map of New York State—a territorial division of The Crepuscule Zone. 

AUDIENCE Applause 

PETER: Welcome to another edition of A Word In Edgewise. I’m your host, Peter Sokolowski, Editor-at-Large for Merriam-Webster. Here’s our theme song, sung by our in-house vocal quartet, The Characters: 

THE CHARACTERS: Language is a living thing, 

Always on the go. 

Rules you know you know, 

You later find are less than apropos. 

How we speak, what we write, 

Keeps changing day and night 

Hold your AP stylebook high and sing, 

“Language is a living thing!” 

AUDIENCE Applause 

PETER: It’s time to welcome today’s contestants to our podcast … 

DAPHNEPodcast?! He meant “broadcast,” I guess! 

LAURELHey, maybe it’s a broadcast run by arthropods! 

DAPHNEGood one, Laurel [they laugh] 

PETER: Of course you folks listening at home can’t see this, but our contestants today, Daphne and Laurel Wolfe, are identical twins. They’re dressed alike, it’s a bit challenging to make them sit still, and they keep switching chairs. So, wardrobe made them sparkly headbands with attached eight-inch-square replicas of Scrabble tiles, one a D and one an L, so we can tell ‘em apart.  

AUDIENCE: Aww! 

PETER: Cute, eh? 

Let’s get started, shall we? 

Daphne, what’s a term for a word with two contradictory meanings? 

DAPHNE: Contranym! [Bell sounds] 

LAUREL: Antagonym! [Bell sounds] 

DAPHNE: Auto-antonym! [Bell sounds] 

LAURELJanus word! [Bell sounds]  

It’s called that because 

 Janus was 

THE CHARACTERS join in: — A Roman god with two faces. 

LAUREL: I think that’s my favorite! 

Bell sounds several times. 

PETERJust a reminder here: You’re competing, so only one twin should answer my question.  

UNCLE DON (from the audience): THEY’RE ABNORMAL! 

PETER: And now, our sponsor gets A Word in Edgewise: 

MIGNON FOGARTY: Hi! This is Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl, with another Language Myth: 

“’Irregardless’ is not a word.’” Wrong! ‘Irregardless’ is a bad word, and a word you shouldn’t use, but it is a word. Visit my website, quickanddirtytipscom, for more. 

PETER: And, we’re back. Laurel: What’s the meaning of “Triskaidekaphobia?” 

DAPHNE AND LAUREL: Fear of the number thirteen! 

Bell sounds. 

PETER [annoyed] I thought I told you, one at a time … all right, when was the first written reference of this phenomenon? 

DAPHNE AND LAUREL: The late 1800s! 

 Bell sounds. 

AUDIENCE applauds and cheers. 

THE CHARACTERS: Language is a dancing fool, 

Whirling ‘round the floor. 

It ricochets from rule to rule. 

Who keeps track anymore? 

Words become unhip, then boom, 

They’re fashionable again. 

It’s dizzying as a tire swing. 

Language is a living thing. 

PETER: Some folks grow awful miffed 

Fighting the tide of semantic drift. 

  Get their panties in a bunch 

When the wife says “dinner” 

Instead of “lunch.” 

THE CHARACTERS: It’s crazy! 

Crazy  

Crazy … 

PETER: Daphne and Laurel will be competing for a marvelous prize today: The 11th Edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 

DAPHNE : Oh … wow … what a cool prize. 

LAUREL: What are you talking about? Webster’s only has three editions.  

[Becoming shaky] Webster’s Third, commonly known as W3,” was released in September 1961.  

THE CHARACTERS:  

Cray 

Cray …] 

LAUREL: It’s got brand-new words in it:  

THE CHARACTERS join her:  

A-Bomb, 

Beatnik, and 

Satellite. 

PETER: Time for another sponsor: 

KAREN YIN: Hello, I’m Karen Yin. Here’s a sweeping generalization we let slide past without commentary: “All grandmothers are  amazing cooks.” The phenomenon is essentially a threefold stereotype involving gender, age, and (for bonus credibility) ethnicity. Read more about this topic on my blogThe Conscious Style Guide. 

PETER’s cell phone rings. 

PETER: Oh! It’s my co-host, Emily Brewster. She’s vacationing in Maui, but I know she’s been listening on her phone. 

EMILY [slack-key guitar in the background] Hi, Peter. 

PETER: Hi, Emily. You’re on speaker. Want to ask the next question? 

EMILY: Sure.  

Laurel:  In the sentence “He was like, ‘My mom didn’t start dating until she was like 25,’” what part of speech is the word “like” in both uses? 

LAUREL: That sounds funny. I don’t know. 

Buzzer sounds. 

 Crowd walla of disappointment 

EMILY: Daphne? 

DAPHNE: It’s called a discourse particle. 

Bell 

EMILY: And what song caused its popularity to take off? 

DAPHNE: [casually] “Valley Girl” by Frank Zappa. Featuring Moon Unit Zappa. 

Bell 

LAUREL: How come you know that song and I don’t? 

THE CHARACTERS: Music is a living thing 

From “Mack the Knife” to “Take Five.”    

It’s alive!  

PETER: My goodness, Daphne, you seem a bit more au courant than your sister. 

DAPHNE (playing to the audience) Well, I am younger—by seventeen minutes. 

Audience laughter 

LAUREL: I thought you didn’t like being younger.  

I’m really confused. 

SALLY [from the audience] YOU’RE IN THE FUTURE, BUNNY. 

LAUREL: Daphne, how come you’re not confused and I am? 

DAPHNE: Well, Laurel, this is my fever dream, and I know all the answers because in the future I know everything. 

PETER: Daphne: Give an example of “circular logic.” 
 
DAPHNE:  [Giggles] I just did. 

Bell 

LAUREL: Your … fever dream? 
 
DAPHNE: “An intense or confusing dream brought on by a fever”—Wikipedia. 

Bell 

LAUREL: Wiki what? 

You mean I’m only in your head? 

DAPHNE and CHARACTERS: You’re always in my head. 

It’s like I’m seeing through your eyes. 

And sometimes I just want … 

DAPHNE: I want the prize. 

I want my own dictionary. 

LAUREL [hurt]: Okay. 

I don’t feel so good.  

DAPHNE: [suddenly worried] You look awful. How many measles do I have? 

LAUREL: [counting] Thirty-six. 

DAPHNE: You have forty-seven. 

My mistake, forty-nine. 

I missed three below your ear. 

Wait, I see another two  … no, four … 

ARTHUR: STOP SAYING NUMBERS IN THERE. I’M TRYING TO SLEEP.  

PETER: Girls, please pay attention. Laurel: What’s another word for a compound crystal composed of two adjoining crystals or parts of crystals of the same kind, that share a common plane of atoms? 

DAPHNE AND LAUREL: Twin. 

[Bell] 

A couple. 

A pair. 

Two. 

DAPHNE: I’m sorry for showing off. I love you, Laurel.  

AUDIENCE: Awww. 

PETER: I’m afraid that does it, Daphne and Laurel. You’re disqualified, but we have a consolation prize for you, after one last commercial break: 

BENJAMIN: Hi, I’m Benjamin Dreyer. 

If you can append “by zombies” to the end of a sentence, you’ve indeed written a sentence in the passive voice. “The floors had been swept, the beds made, the rooms aired out … by zombies!” Remember this neat trick, and remember to buy my book, Dreyer’s English. 

PETER: Girls, here’s a commemorative, inscribed pencil for each of you, souvenirs from the ACES convention. 

That acronym means, of course, 

THE CHARACTERS: The American Copy Editors Society. 

LAUREL [looking at hers] What’s my pencil say? Oh … “I think, therefore I edit.”  

AUDIENCE laughs. 

PETER: Tune in next week, when our panelists will be Simon Heffer, author of Simply English—and Mary Norris, The Comma Queen! 

AUDIENCE cheers. 

The girls are back in their room. 

LAUREL: It’s morning! I feel better. 

DAPHNE: Me too. Wow, look out the window. The sky is so blue. 

Laurel? 

What if the blue I see is different than the blue you see? 

LAUREL: The blue is the same, and our eyes are the same. So no way. 

Hey, what’s an auto-antonym? 

DAPHNE: It’s … (pretending) I forget. Let’s go look it up together. 

DAPHNE AND LAUREL: Yay! 

ARTHUR: Girls, I have a sick-day present for you. 

They gasp in awe

DAPHNE: What’s that? 

LAUREL: Oh, it looks magical! 

ARTHUR: It’s called a lava lamp! It’s on a list in the Times, of words coined this year, and I just had to get you one. 

DAPHNEOoh!  

LAUREL: What are some of the other words?  

ARTHUR: Well, let’s see. Videodisc … streaking …. and ZIP CODE! 

Their enthusiastic chatter cross-fades with the theme song. The family joins in. 

EVERYONE: 

Language is a living thing. 

Can’t keep it in a vise, 

And though you might be erudite, 

You’d best be thinking twice,  

If you start acting like a pill 

About your verbal skill. 

Come on, Let linguistic freedom ring! 

Language is a living thing! 

RANDY AS ROD SERLING: 

 “FAMILY noun 

 Those who live in the same house; household.”—A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson. 

A simple word with deep implications and considerable fluidity—a living thing, if you will. Six letters. Three syllables. Often pronounced as two syllables. A word Daphne and Laurel Wolfe briefly forgot but quickly rediscovered the meaning of, during  a mere eight minutes and 52 seconds in … The Crepuscule Zone. 

It’s crazy!   

      Crazy …. 

DAPHNE: I sure do love my AP stylebook. 

LAUREL: I’m more of a Chicago Manual of Style girl myself. 

DAPHNE:  Ah, go jump in the lake. 

LAUREL: You first, zygote. 

EVERYONE: Language is a living thing, 

Always on the go. 

Rules you know you know, 

You later find are less than apropos. 

How we speak, what we write, 

Keeps changing day and night. 

It’s perpetually on the wing! 
It’s incessantly transmogrifying! 

Hold your AP stylebook high and sing: 

“Language is a living, 

Language is  a living, 

Language is a living thing!”