Serving As Grammarian–Part IV

Welcome to the fourth posting dealing with serving effectively as Grammarian at a club meeting. Thus far we have considered incomplete sentences, mispronunciations, and grammatical mistakes; let us turn our attention here in part IV to non sequiturs.

In Latin, non sequitur means “it does not follow.” The phrase was borrowed into English in the 1500s by people who made a formal study of logic. For them, it meant a conclusion that does not follow from the statements that lead to it. But we now use non sequitur for any kind of statement that seems to come out of the blue.¹ When someone says something completely random, it’s often a non sequitur.

Examples:

Mary bakes the best cakes in town. She should run for mayor.²

From Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some severity; “it’s very rude.”

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”³

It should be noted that “non sequiturs in writing are used as a literary device. Usually they work for jokes and comedy, but they can also be used for characterization in dialogue.”⁴ To exemplify, consider this humorous extract from the script of the Monty Python film Life of Brian:⁵

Pontius Pilate: The little wascal has spiwit.

Centurion: Has what, sir?

Pontius Pilate: Spiwit.

Centurion: Yes, he did sir.

Pontius Pilate: No, no. Spiwit. Bwavado. A bit of dewwing-do.

Centurion: Oh. Uh, about eleven, sir.

The centurion’s confusion about what Pilate is talking about leads him into a non sequitur, with a response that makes no sense to the rest of the conversation.

You might encounter such use of non sequitur in a humorous speech, but I suppose you will more likely be encountering non sequiturs in a club meeting per the first type definition above.

In either case, at least you now know what you are listening for!

1“Non sequitur.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/non%20sequitur. Accessed 23 Nov. 2022.

2https://examples.yourdictionary.com/non-sequitur-examples.html

3https://www.grammarly.com/blog/non-sequitur/

4Ibid

5https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/2/18/2078204/-Logical-Fallacy-Bootcamp-Non-Sequitur