Grammar Moses: Everyone knows it's Windy when you bellow about billowing

I was born in Wisconsin - the land of stop-and-go lights, bubblers and squeaky cheese.

My ties to the land north of the Cheddar Curtain have never been severed, owing to my entire family (save for my brother, who moved to Vietnam) still living there, so I am accustomed to and immersed in entertaining words and, for the purposes of this column, pronunciations.

My sister, born at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights after we immigrated to Illinois, quickly abandoned her Mother Tongue as a student at UW-Madison and quickly hewed to the language of her adopted home.

So, there's a lot of "Hi, now!" and "Go sit on the coach (couch)" and "ya" instead "yeah" whenever we meet.

Which brings me, naturally, to pillows.

Wisconsinites rest their heads on "pellows," you see.

Would I pull your layg about something like that?

I naturally hearkened back to "pellows" recently while editing a news story in which smoke was "bellowing" out of a building or some such thing.

I thought to myself, I bet smoke "bellows" in Wisconsin!

The appropriate word, of course, is "billows."

But I get it. Wind can bellow, just as your neighbor might when you burn leaves during his daughter's backyard wedding.

It's interesting, though.

Smoke billows. But how do you get a fire cranked up in the old fireplace?

I'm not suggesting you use a propane torch, as my dad once did with disastrous results.

A bellows is the safer choice. It expels a lot of air, as your lungs do when you bellow.

The Online Etymology Dictionary, a fun resource you should try sometime, pegs "bellows" as entering the scene around 1200. It came from "belwes," meaning "bags."

"Bellow" as a verb came about a century or so later to describe the sound that cows and bulls make. It was attributed to the wail of humans a few centuries after that.

It's all a lot of hot air, if you ask me.

Inconsolable

A few weeks back I solicited your thoughts on misused words that drive you batty.

I'm no marriage counselor, but Cynthia Cwynar might need one after this.

She tells me her husband says "counsel" when he means "console."

When you counsel (emphasis on the first syllable) someone, you offer advice. When you console (emphasis on the second syllable) someone, you offer comfort.

The I's don't have it

Lisa Pope wrote to tell me she enjoyed my recent column on contractions, which is reward enough for me. But then she served up a column item.

"I am seeing the use of 'I's' more and more often," she wrote. "I received a thank-you note that read, 'Thank you for attending Michael and I's wedding.' Please tell me this is not a word."

OK, Lisa, it is not a word.

Repeat after me: I, me, my.

"My" is the possessive form, not "I's." It's Michael's, Sally's, his, her, their, my wedding.

Now you've locked into my brain George Harrison's social commentary on the self-centeredness of society and the reason for the breakup of the Beatles. "I Me Mine" was the last song recorded on the Beatles' final studio album, "Let It Be."

Bummer. Now I need some consolation.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.