Why Vampires are Deader than Snow White but not as Dead as Casper
So, this semester, I'm taking a grammar class. Which, for me, as an English major, is actually quite interesting. Now before you start having punctuation nightmares, let me reassure you that I'm not going to start lecturing on the proper use of the semi-colon. For me, as an English major, this is actually quite an interesting class.
For example, the other day we were talking about grading adjectives. In a nut shell, If you don't know, grading adjectives is when you assign some sort of value or degree to which a characteristic applies to an adjective. For example, you have the adjective 'big', but you also have 'biggest' and 'bigger'. When you change 'big' to 'bigger', you are grading the adjective. Anyway, our professor was talking about the fact that not all adjectives could be graded, and the example he used was 'dead'. His point was that, once someone is dead, they're dead; they can't die again, they can't become more dead. Basically what he was saying was that, linguistically, there was no need to grade 'dead' because nothing can be 'deader' or the 'deadest'.
I disagree.
Like, I spent the whole rest of the lecture, thinking of different situations in which being able to grade the adjective 'dead' would be useful, and let me tell you, there are a ton of them. Like, don't people with doctorates watch zombie movies? Because, in my books, a zombie is deader than a vampire, but less dead than, you know, an actual human person who is lying in a box in the ground and doesn't get up and walk around. Like, in the absence of gradations of 'dead' horror film directors have had to come up with all these complicated ways to say 'dead, but also sort of not dead, but still dead'; which is why we have phrases like 'the walking dead' and 'the undead'.
I guess people don't die as easily as they used to. It's like, in The Princess Bride when Wesley was 'mostly dead'. Death? Permanent death? As you wish.
So, you see, dead isn't just dead. There's a whole spectrum of deadness. So, for your edification and education, I'm going to present you with a spectrum of deadness, from deadish to deadest.
Snow White - my roommate and I got into a little disagreement about weather or not Snow White, but, I think that she actually died because she ate a poison apple and had to be put in a glass coffin. If you're in a glass coffin, I'm sorry, but you're dead! But, then the prince kissed her and she came back to life; so, I classify her level of deadness as deadish. It's like, well, being dead for a little while was fun, but now I'm going to be alive again and make out with a random guy on a horse. Yeah, deadish.
Vampire - now, again, a vampire isn't very dead. They're deadish. I mean, they behave very much like living people except for the fact that they, you know, suck blood and burn up in the sun, little things like that. But, they look very alive and they can think and talk and reason and own successful businesses and become stock brokers, you know, all the hallmarks of a successful life.
Frankenstein's Monster - so, I'm going to go all English major on you and specify that I'm not talking about Frankenstein, as in Dr. Frankenstein; I'm talking about the monster that Dr. Frankenstein created. Now, I classify him as deader. Like, he's deader than a vampire, but not the deadest of the dead. Frankenstein's monster looks like a zombie, but has the reasoning capacity of a vampire. Like, seriously, the Monster learns to talk like someone out of a Jane Austen novel and he spends his whole life living in the mountains. What? I don't know.
Zombie - so, I think we can all agree that zombies are not known for their intellectual capacity. Zombies are deader than the Monster but not as dead as the ghost. They're deader. Even though they have free range of movement and physical, they don't really think or reason. I mean, it's like BRAINS! I WANT TO EAT YOUR BRAINS! Which is why 90% of all zombies score a 400 or less on the SATs. Stop zombie illiteracy.
Ghost - ghosts are difficult to classify, because they can be very responsible and very intelligent, but they also lack physical bodies, which makes them pretty dead. Like, it's really hard to pretend to be a living person when you're a disembodied head. Which is why ghosts are deader than almost everything else.
Except for actual dead people, they're usually pretty dead. The deadest. Take that English adjective constructions!
Just sayin'
For example, the other day we were talking about grading adjectives. In a nut shell, If you don't know, grading adjectives is when you assign some sort of value or degree to which a characteristic applies to an adjective. For example, you have the adjective 'big', but you also have 'biggest' and 'bigger'. When you change 'big' to 'bigger', you are grading the adjective. Anyway, our professor was talking about the fact that not all adjectives could be graded, and the example he used was 'dead'. His point was that, once someone is dead, they're dead; they can't die again, they can't become more dead. Basically what he was saying was that, linguistically, there was no need to grade 'dead' because nothing can be 'deader' or the 'deadest'.
I disagree.
Like, I spent the whole rest of the lecture, thinking of different situations in which being able to grade the adjective 'dead' would be useful, and let me tell you, there are a ton of them. Like, don't people with doctorates watch zombie movies? Because, in my books, a zombie is deader than a vampire, but less dead than, you know, an actual human person who is lying in a box in the ground and doesn't get up and walk around. Like, in the absence of gradations of 'dead' horror film directors have had to come up with all these complicated ways to say 'dead, but also sort of not dead, but still dead'; which is why we have phrases like 'the walking dead' and 'the undead'.
I guess people don't die as easily as they used to. It's like, in The Princess Bride when Wesley was 'mostly dead'. Death? Permanent death? As you wish.
So, you see, dead isn't just dead. There's a whole spectrum of deadness. So, for your edification and education, I'm going to present you with a spectrum of deadness, from deadish to deadest.
Snow White - my roommate and I got into a little disagreement about weather or not Snow White, but, I think that she actually died because she ate a poison apple and had to be put in a glass coffin. If you're in a glass coffin, I'm sorry, but you're dead! But, then the prince kissed her and she came back to life; so, I classify her level of deadness as deadish. It's like, well, being dead for a little while was fun, but now I'm going to be alive again and make out with a random guy on a horse. Yeah, deadish.
Vampire - now, again, a vampire isn't very dead. They're deadish. I mean, they behave very much like living people except for the fact that they, you know, suck blood and burn up in the sun, little things like that. But, they look very alive and they can think and talk and reason and own successful businesses and become stock brokers, you know, all the hallmarks of a successful life.
Frankenstein's Monster - so, I'm going to go all English major on you and specify that I'm not talking about Frankenstein, as in Dr. Frankenstein; I'm talking about the monster that Dr. Frankenstein created. Now, I classify him as deader. Like, he's deader than a vampire, but not the deadest of the dead. Frankenstein's monster looks like a zombie, but has the reasoning capacity of a vampire. Like, seriously, the Monster learns to talk like someone out of a Jane Austen novel and he spends his whole life living in the mountains. What? I don't know.
Zombie - so, I think we can all agree that zombies are not known for their intellectual capacity. Zombies are deader than the Monster but not as dead as the ghost. They're deader. Even though they have free range of movement and physical, they don't really think or reason. I mean, it's like BRAINS! I WANT TO EAT YOUR BRAINS! Which is why 90% of all zombies score a 400 or less on the SATs. Stop zombie illiteracy.
Ghost - ghosts are difficult to classify, because they can be very responsible and very intelligent, but they also lack physical bodies, which makes them pretty dead. Like, it's really hard to pretend to be a living person when you're a disembodied head. Which is why ghosts are deader than almost everything else.
Except for actual dead people, they're usually pretty dead. The deadest. Take that English adjective constructions!
Just sayin'
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