Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Language
We need to watch our language
Pet peeves in spoken English that should never creep
onto our pages (and if they do, those retired English teachers will tell
us)
By Tom Walton
My old high school teacher at Clay High School, Larry Morgan, taught
me everything I know about the proper use of language, so if I screw this
up, it’s Mr. Morgan’s fault.
I’ve got to be one brick shy of a load anyway to undertake a piece on
the misuse of language when I recognize that most of the people who read
The Blade’s pages of opinion probably know more about verb conjugation,
subject-verb agreement, and the pluperfect subjunctive than I do. And they
are not shy about telling us so.
It’s no excuse for bad grammar, but we do produce what amounts to a
40,000-word book here at The Blade every day. That’s the equivalent of
a Stephen King novel and, on many days, about as terrifying. So I try to
cut our people some slack when we express ourselves badly in our haste.
However, the teachers out there — especially the retired ones — cut us
no slack whatsoever, nor should they.
I hope they keep the pressure on because language abuse is a national
epidemic, I’m convinced.
I mean it as no embarrassment to the individual contributors to The
Blade’s Readers’ Forum, nor would we ever single them out. But one way
to ponder the state of language and writing skills among educated adults
is to peruse the 150 or so letters to the editor that flutter in over the
transom here each week.
Here are some of the most frequent and troublesome spoken and written
blunders we encounter, not just in the mail but elsewhere in everyday life.
Wrong: I seen the mayor today.
Right: I saw the mayor today.
For some reason, "I seen" is everywhere in this town. I hear even educated
people say it, and it does no good to correct them. To them, "I saw" sounds
awful.
Wrong: I should have went to the meeting. (This is usually compressed
to "shoulda went.")
Right: I should have gone to the meeting.
It’s a mystery to me, but this one pops up regularly. Here’s a direct
quote from a local football coach last fall, lifted from a game story in
the Bowling Green, Ohio, paper: "We could have went in there and gone up
14-6. "Coach, when I read that, I coulda went into the bathroom and throwed
up.
Wrong: The governor has nothing to loose by waiting.
Right: The governor has nothing to lose by waiting.
It amazes me how many people who write otherwise erudite and intelligent
letters think loose is the same as lose. Maybe I’m loosing my mind.
Wrong: The National Rifle Association is off their rocker.
Right: The National Rifle Association is off its rocker.
The NRA is a collective singular noun, so it has a rocker, they don’t.
(Special bonus: editorial comment thrown in there free of charge.)
Wrong: I go shopping alot.
Right: I go shopping a lot.
Why so many people want to join two words into one nonexistent word,
I haven’t a clue.
Wrong: The team lost it’s last three games.
Right: The team lost its last three games.
This one is tricky, I admit. More people get confused on the correct
use of its and it’s than almost any other usage problem. It’s that doggone
apostrophe. Folks think it’s is a possessive. It isn’t. It’s simply a collection
of it is. Its is the possessive form.
Nobody said this was easy. Ours is a language, after all, in which the
words passive and impassive — which sound like they ought to have opposite
meanings — mean pretty much the same thing.
Speaking of apostrophes, why do so many people think an apostrophe makes
a singular noun plural? You see this all the time. A flier for a school
fund-raiser announces: "Winner’s need not be present to win!" Maybe we’ll
lick this one when pig’s fly. Oops.
Another pet peeve: when somebody gives me a verbal dressing down — richly
deserved most of the time — and then concludes by saying, "You see what
I’m saying?" Well, actually, no, I don’t. Unless you’re throwing up alphabet
soup, I don’t see what you’re saying. I hear it just fine, however.
Here’s another: the poor, abused, and battered comma. Not a day passes
that we don’t get a Readers’ Forum submission that separates the subject
from the verb in a simple sentence.
"Jim, is not here today."
And spelling? Don’t get me started. When I see a downtown automotive
shop with a sign that reads, "Wheel Alinement," well, it grinds my gears.
Having unloaded all this, you ask, what’s my point. Am I going out of
my way to poke fun at the wonderful folks who keep those cards and letters
coming? Absolutely not. They have the courage of their convictions and
their opinions, and they step up to be heard when others prefer to remain
silent. I admire them all greatly.
I’m simply calling attention to a societal problem that doesn’t seem
to get any better. I fear that as we continue down this electronic path
of information dissemination, the simple joy of a well-crafted and correctly
structured sentence is eluding millions of us.
Words are among mankind’s greatest inventions; without them all the
stuff that followed — telephones, televisions, computers — has no purpose.
Yet grammar for its own sake is rarely taught at the collegiate level any
more.
Writing may soon be a lost art, and I don’t mind sounding the alarm.
I’ve got nothing to loose.
Walton is vice president and editor of The Blade, Toledo, Ohio.
