I have many bad habits. I am married to a person who either refuses to relate them to me or is blinded by love and the many books in which he buries his face. That said, I am well aware that I do things incorrectly and that I have bad habits. For example, I frequently leave a wet towel on the bed. I know this isn’t acceptable. (For what it’s worth, if it doesn’t bother him it bothers me and I am trying to correct myself.) I squeeze the toothpaste from the top. Nope. Doesn’t bother him. I play my music very loud on a regular basis. No. He has concentration habits from the gods, and as he reads not a thing interrupts him
But speaking and writing habits… I’m usually pretty tight with that. I mean I’m a writer and a public speaker… I only “do it” for effect. But this was not so today.
I took off for the pool to swim my mile… the entire time I’m swimming I’m thinking about grammar as I’m counting my strokes per lap. Everybody has a hot button with Americans and their grammar. I’m thinking, “Why not write about this?”
I sent an e-mail that included various persons I know from many different walks of life. One friend (“very bright, very quick-witted) replied almost immediately. First thing, she said, “OK… First, it’s ARE not IS.” I think to myself, “What?” I refer to my e-mail. Yep, she’s right. I was wrong. I stand corrected. Was this her hot button in American grammar? No.
She’s watching TV with her hubby. The announcer, a seemingly educated man sharing football with thousands of listeners across the country, says, “He should have went down that way.” (Please tell me that you see the error in this announcer’s grammar.) And, oxygen is being given to my friend as she continues to try to watch football with her sweetheart.
As a writer, I find it difficult to constantly encounter the mistaken use of YOUR for YOU’RE. Another is the use of “him and me” instead of “he and I.” RRRRRrrrrr. So painful. Are they trying to kill me? No, they are not. It happens to be the way so many people speak in this day and age.
I wonder if this consistently bad grammar comes from so many immigrants, intelligent persons, who are trying to communicate in a new language as they make the USA their home. In Mira Mesa, California I am aware of one woman who teaches in a high school; at lunch break she can cross the lunch quadrant and hear 50 different languages and dialects being spoken at one time! (At lunch these new citizens speak their native tongue; in class they try to use English. At home, the native language is used either for convenience or because some parents have no intention of learning to speak English. These students spend time with friends from the same country, and they speak the native tongue, not knowing that others who observe them think it rude and exclusive.) English gets less use, and so mistakes in grammar are bound to occur. No one can fault them for wanting to appear and feel intelligent in the USA as they appeared in their native country… for speaking in a language that still isn’t comfortable limits the things one can say! Language is a powerful medium. Language says something about all of us, and we all want that appearance to be good.
That said, we Americans who have lived here all of our lives have reinvented the language to fit our texting habits. (What! You don’t text? It’s okay; I rarely do either.) I know enough to understand that our language is changing to fit into tiny quick conversations, and then somehow translating itself into our every day written and spoken tongue.
What about these errors? “I seen her” instead of “I’ve seen her.” And this one when someone asks another “How are you” and that individual replies (You can hear it coming, can’t you) “Oh I’m good!” The correct reply would be “I’m well” or I”m fine” or “I’m okay.”
So we say to ourselves, “What’s the big deal?” They’re only words. We’re communicating. And, yes we are… as we reinvent the meaning of words. The world is constantly changing and we are changing with it. Most of the time I can blow it off and not think too much about it. But there’s one thing with which I cannot do that. In fact, I’ve learned I’m not the only person who finds this painful. Here it is.
LY words. I know the minute that an individual starts in with the LY words, I’m in for a lecture. A lesson in something. And whomever is giving me this lecture believes in him or herself do much that he/she needs to exaggerate that moment in time by using the LY words. You know them: “Clearly” is one of them. “Obviously” is another. Yet there is this: If I knew it were clear and obvious, that person wouldn’t be in front of me lecturing on the topic.
Okay, my blood pressure just went up. Time to let it go. I guess the big deal is that I don’t want anyone from our country to be thought of as lacking in verbal skills. We are a loving, caring, active hardworking people. We are the good guys. We wear white! And, when some of us speak like the English language is a dead language and we use only slang, one black smudge shows up on our national uniform. And when you wear white and there’s even one smudge: Well that is where everyone looks. The rest of the beauty of this white garment becomes invisible because we opened up our mouths and foolish incorrect grammar came out and spoiled the view.
May you and yours speak well of each other in beautiful English.
Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple