The Grammarian

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.