Purple People and the Importance of Context and Queries

Grammar does not exist in a vacuum. Thankfully, editors usually have the context of an entire book or article to work with when they are editing, but what if they didn’t?

The lyrics to the song “The Purple People Eater” by Sheb Wooley are a prime example of why context (and querying) is important. The most popular part of the playful song states, “It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater.”

Now, without any context, it is not necessarily clear whether the monster Wooley sings about has one eye, one horn, flies, is purple, and eats people or if the monster is eating people who have one eye, one horn, fly, and are purple. Similarly, the ambiguity could account for multiple interpretations, say a one-eyed monster that eats one-horned, flying, purple people, or any combination of the stated characteristics.

As an editor, if I were only editing this sentence alone, it would certainly be necessary to query the author for clarification. You could say that it would be absurd to think that any of those characteristics could apply to people, but clearly, the song itself seems pretty absurd (and the editor may come to regret the decision to refrain from querying the author).

Fortunately, Wooley provides clarification within the context of the rest of the lyrics. We know that the monster (not the people) in the song has one eye, one horn, and flies because the song opens with, “Well, I saw the thing comin’ out of the sky/ It had a-one long horn and one big eye.”

However, you may be surprised at an interesting turn of events when someone speaking in the song asks the monster, “Mr. Purple People Eater, what’s your line?” And the creature responds with, “Eatin’ purple people and it sure is fine.” This is a classic example of why context and querying are important. It would be reasonable to assume that the monster is purple, but when provided with more context, we discover that the monster actually eats people who are purple. It may also be purple itself, but that technically remains unknown when examining the lyrics alone.

Querying is a necessary tool in the editor’s toolkit. When context does not provide the answers a reader needs, it is our job as editors to ask authors for clarification. Otherwise, we could end up with purple monsters instead of purple people.