The Fanboys

by Madeleine Kando

I am a fan of the Fanboys. Were it not for them, life would be short, nasty and brutish. 'Fanboys' is an acronym for what grammarians call 'conjunctions', those little things that function as superglue between parts of sentences, and consequently our thoughts.

Without the Fanboys, we couldn't 'like cats but not dogs', 'eat raisins and nuts', 'wear skirts or pants', 'work hard yet enjoy ourselves', and 'wear glasses so we could see'.

You guessed it, each letter in 'Fanboys' stands for one of those conjunctions: For, And, Neither, But, Or, Yet and So.

Can you imagine if we didn't have the Fanboys as a shield against those uppity independent clauses? So full of themselves, thinking they are always right and everybody else is wrong? The Fanboys are there to put them in their place, cut them down to size and make some room for compromise. 'My twin sister is very pretty' sounds ok, but 'My twin sister is very pretty, but I am prettier' sounds a lot better.

The Fanboys are the grease that makes the squeaky world go around. I cannot imagine what I would do if my favorite conjunctions weren't around. You expect a lot more forgiveness when you say: 'I was going to do the dishes, but there was no hot water' instead of 'I didn't do the dishes'. Or how about: 'There was no hot water, so I couldn't do the dishes nor could I do the laundry. Oh, and neither could I cook dinner'. Instead of: 'There was no hot water. I didn't do the dishes. I didn't do the laundry. I didn't cook dinner'. (take it or leave it, I don't care).

See what I am getting at? Without conjunctions, civilization would grind to a halt, people would be at each others' throats, there would be no give or take, life would be hell.

What if we could only express affirmatives or a negatives? That's actually what children do. They say 'I like apples, I like bananas, I don't like medicine'. Soon they learn that by using conjunctions, they can save a lot of energy, not to mention acquire a very useful manipulative tool to get what they want. 'I was going to do my homework, but the cat ate it'.

Without the Fanboys you couldn't say 'Yes, I am happy, but I would be a lot happier if you didn't leave your dirty socks all over the bedroom floor.' They let you explain why you strangled your neighbor (because he plays his radio full blast all day long), that you don't wish to be on Facebook nor on Twitter and that you are allergic to cats, yet you have three of them, etc.

Although conjunctions may sound like insignificant little pieces of language, without them we would have to repeat things a lot. Instead of saying: 'I like apples and pears, but I don't like bananas nor oranges', we would have to say: 'I like apples. I like pears. I don't like bananas. I don't like oranges'.

Without the 'or', we would have to say: 'Would you like to go to the movies, maybe? Would you like to go to opera, maybe?' All that sounds so awkward, don't you think?

The Fanboys are just one type of conjunction, they make a bridge between two sentences of equal importance. They are the 'coordinators'. But some conjunctions make one sentence subordinate to another and by giving more information than the main sentence provides, although they give up their autonomy in the process. As in 'After I brushed my teeth, I kissed my husband'. 'Kissing my husband' can stand on its own, but 'after I brush my teeth' cannot.

There are so many conjunctions that it's a mystery how we ever manage to learn all of them, not to mention use them correctly. We never mix up 'even if ' and 'even though' or 'unless' and 'until'. I tell you, it's a miracle. Our brains must have little cubby holes, every one with a slightly different shape, where only one of these myriad conjunctions fit correctly. How do children, by the age of 4 or 5, already know how to use conjunctions properly? Why don't they say: 'I tried to hit the nail so I hit my thumb instead'? Or 'I have two goldfish but a cat?'

Conjunctions, especially the subordinate ones, must fulfill the brain's basic need to try to answer the 'why, what, how, where, when and who' of life. Answers that we need to make sense of the world around us. Why did you have a glass of beer? 'I had a glass of beer because I was thirsty'. When did you have a glass of beer? After I ate a pizza, etc.

Technically speaking, we could make do without conjunctions, it's not absolutely crucial to communication, but it would make speaking and writing clunky and ugly. I, for one, am glad they exist. If they didn't, someone would have to invent them pronto.

Additionally, with a government shutdown looming on the horizon again, I propose we all sign a petition to force Tea Party Members to enroll in English Grammar classes and learn the meaning of conjunctions (read compromise). leave comment here