Posts
The letter writer is seriously torqued by bad grammar. It is encroaching everywhere, making more and more people sound like functional illiterates. You will retort that speaking like you never got past the third grade is a gesture of solidarity with those who never got past the third grade, but still.
So, she asks Miss Manners whether it is rude to correct the grammatical errors that she hears every day.
Why is it bad manners to correct someone's grammar?
Being someone who dealt with the English language in their profession, we tried, and brought our children up, to at least say, if not spell, words and phrases correctly, and to use correct terms. Unfortunately, them being in school and being exposed to their peers' (and even teachers'!) mispronunciations, it didn't always work.
An example: When one of my children was in high school, they had to write about some subject. Though there were many spelling and punctuation errors and wrongly used words, the teacher gave them a high mark. I was appalled and asked the teacher why they didn't correct any of it. The reply: "Because you know what they mean."
As for the spoken word, there are so many instances where people sound uneducated. I'm not saying one has to be an English major, but one should at least sound halfway literate. I, myself, have been corrected for mispronouncing words, and am grateful for it. I'd prefer to not sound like an idiot.
Why do people get angry at being corrected, calling others the "grammar police?" You would think they'd instead be grateful for knowing how to correctly pronounce a word. The correction isn't made to embarrass, but to educate.
I've seen people roll their eyes or smirk at someone who's mispronounced a word, when they could instead let them know the correct pronunciation. So this person will always mispronounce that word, forever having others roll their eyes or smirk. Which would they rather have: possible embarrassment for a second or two, or an eternity of smirks and being thought uneducated?
As for the written word, that would follow the spoken word. If you don't know how to speak correctly, you can't correctly write it.
Also, unfortunately, it's these same people who grow up to be educators -- teachers of every kind -- who perpetuate these same errors because they were never corrected for fear of offending them. So now we have adults who say things like "all the sudden" for "all of a sudden"; "so fun" for "so much fun" (one of my greatest peeves. Much. So much fun); "for all intensive purposes" for "for all intents and purposes"; "meantime" for "in the meantime"; "doggy-dog world" for "dog-eat-dog world," etc.
You have doubtless noticed the “Physician, heal thyself!” aspect of her plaint. Miss Manners offers the perfect riposte.
You make a compelling case that we should all be educated. But that does not make it polite to point out that others are not.
However, as you have stated that you would be grateful to be corrected, Miss Manners trusts that you will be glad to hear that she noticed that you split infinitives, follow a singular noun with a plural pronoun, and use the objective case before a gerund.
Better to use good grammar oneself, and thus to set a shining example, than to become a chronic scold.
It’s not the blind leading the blind, but the illiterate leading the illiterate. To say that this is a dreadful state of affairs, a clear sign that the American mind is entering a Biden-like state of dementia, is to say the least.
8 comments:
I reply to these illiterates, " What does that mean? ", or " What are you trying to say? I didn't understand that. " Of course, things can get worse from there.
I hesitate to point out the the injunction not to split an infinitive is a dead "schoolma'arm" rule, based on the 19th century's granting the one-word Latin infinitive primacy over the Germanic languages usage. If you split an infinitive today, you are treating English correctly. (Skewered once and for all in the public sphere when "To boldly go" became a debate.)
The same problem exists for the old prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition (perfectly fine in Germanic languages) and how awkwardly the artificial rule treats reasonable English. (Skewered by Churchill's mockery of "up with which I will not put".)
Spoken English is full of different vernaculars, regionalisms, etc. that may be technically incorrect, but succeed in getting the underlying point across. Clear communication is almost always the desired result.
Written English is a different story, where these don't readily come across, and the "old rules" make a little more sense.
I have no problem with a person's vernacular, but when I see glaring errors in print (especially in major media) it really puts the writer (and editor!) in a poor light.
The real problem, as the letter makes manifest, lies in the way the writer uses pronouns. She uses them correctly, by current rules, but her practice causes confusion. As for split infinitives, I do not split infinitives. And then again I do not dangle participles either. I recognize that sometimes it is impossible to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition, but I do not do it anyway. But then again I was born in the nineteenth century. Distinctions in language usage normally denote either regional differences or social classes. Surely we know cases where people speak such bad and incoherent English that they are excluded from parties or lose job opportunities. Telling people that they can speak as they please will make them socially marginalized.
And, of course, there are regionalisms, and accents, and colloquialisms. Also, fast talkers and slooooow talkers. My parents were teachers, so I learned reading and spelling early on, LO! those many years ago.
What I find bizarre is how frequenntly I see educated people who should know better write "loose" when they mean "lose," "loosing" when they mean "losing," etc. Invariably this is amidst otherwise fine spelling and grammar.
The same problem exists for the old prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition , . . .
I make it a point not to end a sentence with a preposition just to prove I can.
I'm a day short and a dollar late... (I'll go quietly into my basement of solitude.)
Post a Comment