You Guys Are Killing Me
I cringe every time I hear or see the English language mottled with horrid sights and sounds. None of us is perfect all the time with respect to language, but more and more, it seems, few of us mastered grammar taught in - what's it called? - grammar school. I am cringing so much nowadays that I am in the fetal position.
People who are paid to write or speak English are out of their ken. Lord, listen to the President of the United States. The emperor has no clothes. Well, no command of English. Just the troups.
So I'm going to throw a few things out there in the hope that at least one person recognizes himself. Or herself.
When I was in third grade Sharon Newcomer decided that she was way ahead of the curve by using I instead of me. In every case! It was then that I began to cringe.
John and I are getting married. Correct. I is one of the subjects of the sentence. Takes the nominative case. Pronouns have cases in English. Nominative refers to the pronoun's being used as a subject.
The Rev. Billy Graham married John and I. Auuuuugh!!! John and me. The pronoun me is the object of the verb married. Takes the objective case. Prepositions also take the objective case. The story in the paper was about John and me. Me. See. John and me. I feel the cringe of the other even now.
The error we just discussed appears in absolutely every Charmed script. Every one. Of course, one of the sisters writes a newspaper column. The error appears in the film Troy. It's spoken by Helen of Troy (Well, she's still a princess of Troy, but no matter.) and nearly kills me, because I watch the movie about once a week. I know, I know. It's my own fault.
I'm going to throw out just a few things that will keep you, in just my opinion you understand, from sounding and writing like an idiot.
Forehead. The word is properly pronounced far'-ed. Not four-head. This is what's known as an idiom. It does look like the latter, but is properly pronounced as the former.
Here's one more. Will keep you from sounding like an idiot. Often. Pronounced off'-en. Not off-ten. This, too, is an idomatic pronunciation, but it is correct.
Now we come to one that some of you are so deep in the incorrect that you will find proper usage difficult to believe. Believe me. You all sound like idiots:
Someone who hasn't chosen a career finds it difficult to choose their courses for the semester. Auuuuugh!!! You don't even see the error, do you? Let's consider someone. That is one person. Even says it. One. In English we have something called parallel structure. Just think that the two ends of a sentence have to balance. So... We have someone as the subject of the sentence. Singular. One. There is a pronoun in the sentence following that singular subject. But look. You, yes you, have chosen a plural - more than one - pronoun to refer to the singular someone. You chose their. Why did you choose a plural pronoun to refer back to a singular subject? That just doesn't make any sense at all. In French. In German. In Italian. I could go on. And, certainly, not in English. So correct it. ...difficult to choose his (or her) courses. Parallel structure and just common sense. I know you'll have to think about it. And I'm not going to go further, because, if you're not really thinking, it won't matter anyhow.
No wonder the French laugh at us: We can't even speak English.
Someone who speaks correctly will make a good impression wherever they go. Nooooo!!! Wherever he goes.
If you have an understanding of English, you may take some license with it. As I have above. Someone will say, and I know it, "Well, that's not a whole sentence. He's not right."
I have permission. Really I do. Because I was paying attention in the third grade.
You know, I think if we spoke and wrote as one, we might not feel that we are so different. Maybe.
posted by lvuback1 @ 12:01 AM
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