Okay, you knew I’d eventually have a grammar rant.
When people
discover that I have a degree in English – I like to say I’ve mastered it as a
foreign language – they fall all over themselves trying to prove that they know
the rules of grammar. Inevitably a sentence pops up, “Just between you and me –
I mean I…” to which I reply, “No, you were right the first time.” That baffles
many people, and they try to argue the point until I tell them me is the object of a preposition, so
it’s me, not I. It’s surprising how
many people have no idea what I’m talking about.
The
information has nothing to do with my degree. That was in writing, not in
grammar. The grammar is from fifth grade English. From grades five through
eight we learned parts of speech, and diagrammed sentences of increasing
complexity. I was the diagram queen of my eighth grade class.
What
solidified my knowledge of English grammar was studying Spanish for four years
in high school. Whatever I didn’t quite understand about English grammar, I
learned through Spanish grammar.
Unless
they’re using double negatives or saying seen without an auxiliary verb (that’s
a helper verb, folks), most people’s grammar doesn’t bother me. What I do find
aggravating are commercials where the combination of poor spelling and bad
grammar make me shudder.
I can
accept a company using a misspelling for their name. Dunkin’ Donuts, for
example. It follows the play on words of ‘60s bands, The Beatles and the Byrds.
The trouble is other companies followed the lead and began misspelling doughnut
to the degree that now most Americans think “donut” is the correct spelling.
Spelling
isn’t the worst. Ad writers show their ignorance of word meaning with words
like less. Ask what the opposite of
more is, and they’ll say less. But wait. Only sometimes. Fewer is also the opposite of more. “More taste, less calories.”
No, no, no! If you can count it, it’s fewer.
More
recently a healthcare company has proven its ad people don’t have a good
command of the language. Their slogan is “Live fearless.” Gaaah! Live is a verb. Fearless is an adjective. Verbs are modified by adverbs! Even people on the streets who
think donut is correct spelling have
taken markers to correct the ad posters with an ly.
With advertisements
misspelled and with poor grammar assaulting us daily, is it any wonder people
have lost their ability to use correct grammar? To make matters worse, spell
check – at least on American computers – is wrong on several words. Its/It’s is
wrong. Spell check/Grammar check on Word documents will insist it’s is possessive. Lay and Lie are
wrong on Grammar check as well. And forget phrases set off by commas. Grammar
check apparently doesn’t like commas. It also frequently doesn’t recognize
common verbs.
When the
ads in print or on TV and the computer tools designed to help us are constantly
bombarding us with bad spelling and incorrect grammar, is it any wonder many
Americans can’t write a grammatically correct, correctly spelled sentence? And
don’t even get me started on to, too and two.
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.
Commas save lives.
