Linguimericks—Book ८२ SpecGram Vol CLXXXIX, No 4 Contents Little Known Facts About Famous Linguists—The SpecGram Paparazzi Elves™

Ask Grammaticality Brown

Q: I want to relocate my Whytree, Whobush and Whatplants (possibly with some Howpansies) to the leftmost part of my garden. Is there a mechanism to do this without them losing integrity or constituency?

A: The leftmost part of the garden can be a crowded place! Topicalus focusensis often thrives there and few gardens can consider themselves complete without a focusensis, I’m sure you agree! However, if you carefully lift up the whole plant with all its roots and move it in an iterative stepwise movement, you can usually get it the area of land where you want to site it (or the landing site if you will!).

P.S. A word of warning if your garden has, as many of the best gardens do, some extensive water-feature infrastructure (waterfalls, lakelettes, riverlets etc) and if your water-feature infrastructure happens to include any islands wherein your Whytrees etc are nicely rooted, best to leave them where they are!

Q: I love forget-me-nots but just can’t seem to grow forgot-me-nots or forgotten-me-nots. Are my gardening techniques stuck in the past?

A: Forget-me-nots are an irregular plant at the best of times. If you can seed some similarly irregular plant in the vicinity (try a gooseberry, or better a whole bunch of geeseberries?), the bees (and the was(p)s) cross-pollinate more easily and your woes will all be in the past.

Q: I’ve been growing blueberries, blackberries and gooseberries quite successfully for years and have started to ponder whether to start in on cranberries. What’s your take on Vaccinium oxycoccos?

A: An isolated spot is the best for a cranberry bush, away from the regularity and symmetry of the wider garden. What’s more, if cranberries are grown too close to other berries, they tend to morph into all sorts of other shapes and lose their distinctiveness. Leave them on their own and they’ll bring their own idiosyncratic meaning to your garden.

LinguimericksBook ८२
Little Known Facts About Famous LinguistsThe SpecGram Paparazzi Elves™
SpecGram Vol CLXXXIX, No 4 Contents