Author Entertains Crowd

Did you know that Moses went up on Mount Cyanide and died before he reached Canada?

This tidbit of -revisionist history was among the student-produced masterpieces described by best-selling author Richard H. Lederer in a speech at the Harvard Graduate School of Education last night.

Leaderer, a graduate of the Education School and the author of several books on language, including Anguished English, entertained a crowd of approximately 60 with a talk about his favorite language, English--which he termed "the linguistic wonder of the modern world."

The author ran through a string of seemingly innocuous English phrases, pointing out misuses and puns ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.

"How does one learn a language in which one parks in a driveway, and drive on a parkway?" he asked. "A man gets a hernia, while a woman gets a hysterectomy."

The language lover Leader explained the entymological roots of many commonly used words. The root hyst, it turns out, is derived from a Greek belief that the womb was a organ which circulated around the women's body and tickled her, causing hysteria.

Among Lederer's favorite student bloopers was that of a young historian who wrote, "Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world--with hundred foot clippers."

Teachers are no more immune to the pitfalls of punnery, although their lapses might be a bit more intentional.

For instance, Lederer told the story of a professor who was marking a student's paper on burrows. After several misspellings of "burros" as "burrows," the professor wrote, "it is apparent to me that you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground."

And Lederer dug deeper, as his list went on and on.

Struggling Verbosity

Lederer offered advice to writers struggling with problems of misunderstanding and verbosity.

"We can keep it simple where appropriate," he said. "But not simplistic."

Lederer advocated the use of one-syllable words, which are often just "as good as long ones."

"Short words are like fast friends," he said. "They will not let you down."

During his talk, the author alluded to the debate over "political correctness."

"Language certainly influences our thoughts and images," he said in an interview after the speech. "There is no reason to use the sexist pronoun, but it can be taken to the extreme."

For instance, he said he would use "chair" for the head of a department, and "people" rather than "men," but thinks that "man" is acceptable to use as a term for humanity.

Referring throughout the talk to his own works, which deal with subjects ranging from the history of English to varieties of puns, the author said the usually answers the question, "Where do you get your ideas from?" with the question, "Where does the spider get its web?"

But when he told a young student this, he said, the child came right back at him and said, "From its butt."

"I'm very grateful to come back to Harvard and to get my ideas--whatever their source," he added.

After the lecture, Lederer signed copies of his works, which were on sale to benefit the Education School.