"Rebel With A Clause"
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According to the publicity page:
One fall day in 2018, Ellen Jovin set up a folding table on a Manhattan sidewalk with a sign that said “Grammar Table.” Right away, passersby began excitedly asking questions, telling stories, and filing complaints.
What happened next is the stuff of grammar legend.
Ellen and her filmmaker husband, Brandt Johnson, took the table on the road, visiting all 50 US states as Brandt shot the grammar action.
The grammar-table journey continued, with a book published in 2022, and now a movie, whose premiere will be at the Planet Word museum on 1/10/2025. You can sign up to learn about other screenings, and here's the trailer.
Ellen Jovin has other accomplishments. A New Yorker article that appeared before the "Grammar Table" was first set up ("The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages", 8/27/2018) mentions her in one of her other roles:
Ellen Jovin, a dynamic New Yorker who has been described as the “den mother” of the polyglot community, explained that her own avid study of languages—twenty-five, to date—“is almost an apology for the dominance of English. Polyglottery is an antithesis to linguistic chauvinism.”
The memetic source of the title is the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause, about which Wikipedia says:
Focusing on emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers, the film offers both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments.
The 1955 movie took its title (though not much else) from a 1944 book by Robert Lindner (Rebel without a cause: The hypnoanalysis of a criminal psychopath), which offers a detailed case study of a man identified as a "criminal psychopath". Lindner says that
the psychopath, like Johnstone's rogue-elephant, is a rebel, a religious dis-obeyer of prevailing codes and standards. Moreover, clinical experience with such individuals makes it appear that the psychopath is a rebel without a cause, an agitator without a slogan, a revolutionary without a program: in other words, his rebelliousness is aimed to achieve goals satisfactory to himself alone.
His memorable phrase aside, the film's characters are not well described by Lindner's sketch, in that most of the film's drama arises from its characters' determination to help their friends and acquaintances deal with difficult circumstances, not their attempts to achieve immediate self-gratification.
As for why Ellen Jovin chose a title echoing the Rebel meme, this passage from her book suggests a possible source, as an analogy between teen/parent relationships and everyone's relationships to self-appointed language authorities:
Sometimes my interventions soothe the insecurities of the questioner. A tiny Filipino woman—maybe five feet tall, about forty years old—approached the table holding the hand of a tinier girl. She wanted to know how to pronounce “finance.” Did the word start out like “fine” and have the stress on the first syllable, or did it begin like “fin” and have the stress on the second? When she heard that her second-syllable stress was fine, even preferable in the opinion of one of the experts whose books lay on the Grammar Table, she started jumping up and down. This is neither hyperbole nor metaphor: she literally jumped up and down and made her smaller companion’s arm sail in sync with her excitement. Someone had been telling her she was wrong, and now she knew she wasn’t, and she felt better! […]
Language is connected to people’s sense of self and their sense of power. There is a lot of grammar insecurity; people regularly wish they knew more about the building blocks of the words they use. Whoever the Grammar Table visitors are, I want them to feel good about the relationship they have with language today and, if they want to acquire new knowledge, hopeful about where they might end up.
Dick Margulis said,
December 8, 2024 @ 9:48 am
Ellen and Brandt had a brief Kickstarter campaign to raise the last chunk of money to complete the movie, and they hit their goal twelve hours ago. So the timing of this post is apt. Bookmark https://www.rebelwithaclause.com/ to host a screening near you.
Ralph J Hickok said,
December 8, 2024 @ 9:50 am
While I'm certainly aware of Lindner's book, the James Dean movie is much better known and was responsible for the popularity of the phrase.
David Morris said,
December 8, 2024 @ 2:30 pm
In my befuddled early-morning state, I thought for a moment that the synopsis for 'Rebel without a cause' was referring to 'Rebel without a cLause'.
David Morris said,
December 8, 2024 @ 7:04 pm
Sorry, 'Rebel *with* a cLause'.
There is also a book 'Rebel with*out* a cLause' by Susan Butler, the former editor of the Macquarie Dictionary, which is more about words than clauses.
David Marjanović said,
December 9, 2024 @ 3:15 pm
…huh. Wikipedia says "/ˈfaɪnæns/, /faɪˈnæns/, /fɪˈnæns/". Somehow all but the first had escaped me.
David Marjanović said,
December 9, 2024 @ 3:16 pm
Wiktionary, I mean.
RfP said,
December 9, 2024 @ 4:40 pm
@David
The first pronunciation seems to be the prevailing British usage, while the last one—the one used by the woman in the above excerpt—is listed first both in the Merriam-Webster and American Heritage dictionaries.
My recollection is that both of these are common here in the U.S., with an edge, perhaps, for last one listed in Wiktionary.
Andrew Usher said,
December 9, 2024 @ 6:36 pm
… and the second pronunciation is an odd hybrid I wouldn't expect to hear much, perhaps more likely in 'financing'. Though some people may use first -syllable stress for the noun and second- for the verb, it's not usual as with many other English words.
Finally I don't understand what the point of this movie could be at all. I can't see anything about grammar or language that's really suited to the format.
k_over_hbat at yahoo dot com
KeithB said,
December 11, 2024 @ 9:45 am
There is also Robert Rodriguez' memoir _Rebel Without a Crew_ published in 1995.
Ben Zimmer said,
December 12, 2024 @ 7:17 pm
@KeithB: I wonder if Rodriguez was also playing off "Rebel Without a Clue," the title of a 1986 Bonnie Tyler song that was also used in the lyrics of the Replacements' "I'll Be You" (1989) and Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" (1991).
Rodger C said,
December 13, 2024 @ 11:17 am
I also recall "Rebels without a Clue" as the title of an article in The Nation (?) from about that time, bemoaning the historical ignorance of young leftists. It was the first time I saw the phrase, but anent priority, I can't find it easily on Google.
TIC Redux said,
December 13, 2024 @ 3:38 pm
Born and bred in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, I pronounce "finance" with a long i, and first-syllable stress, but I don't hear the most common alternative (short i, and second-syllable stress) as in any way unusual or "regional"… On the other hand, in a radio commercial that I hear multiple times a day of late, I'm struck when I hear "insurance" pronounced with first-syllable stress — but without an accompanying Southern (US) accent…
Andrew Usher said,
December 13, 2024 @ 10:21 pm
Yes, that variant of 'insurance' irritates me, roo; I've heard it from non-Southerners on occasion, although I don't know where they get it. As to 'finance', I think second-syllable stress has the better authority, and so I use it, but the alternative is too common to condemn. If the word had come down from ME with first-syllable stress, it would be FIN-ins.