Posted on 02/24/2007 10:03:44 AM PST by rhema
"If I was President, this wouldn't have happened," John Kerry said during Hezbollah's war on Israel last summer. As 2004's Democratic presidential nominee should know, he should have said, "If I were President…"
It's sad, but hardly surprising, that the subjunctive evades someone of Kerry's stature. The English language is under fire, as if it strolled into an ambush. It would be bad enough if this assault involved the slovenly grammar, syntax, and spelling of drooling boors. But America's elites -- politicians, journalists, and marketers who should know better -- constantly batter our tongue.
The subjunctive, for instance, lies gravely wounded. Fewer and fewer Americans bother to discuss hypothetical or counterfactual circumstances using this verb mood. "This would not be a close election if George Bush was popular," Rep. Chris Shays (R.-Conn.) told reporters last summer, using "was," not "were." He erred further: "This would not be a close election if there wasn't a war in Iraq."
Similarly, a HepCFight.com newspaper ad declared: "If Hep C was attacking your face instead of your liver, you'd do something about it."
In an Ameritrade ad last year, a teenage girl begs her father for $80. "80 bucks?" he asks.
"Well, there's these jeans,” she replies, adding later: "There's these really cool shoes."
Forget the shopping spree. Dad should have sent his daughter upstairs without dinner until she mastered noun-verb agreement. Since they are plural, "there are" jeans and shoes, not "there's," the contraction for "there is."
This is a burgeoning linguistic blunder.
United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten told a Manhattan labor rally: "The muscle and the zeal that built our union is still with us." As a teachers' unionist, for crying out loud, Weingarten should know that muscle and zeal are still with us.
Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.- Nev.) said, "There was no terrorists in Iraq." Actually, there were, and Reid should have used that plural verb with those plural Islamofascists, even if he considered Baathist Iraq a terrorist-free zone.
In a taped, on-air promo, one cable news network's announcer said, "Inside the UN, there’s more than a thousand doors." No, there ARE more than 1,000 doors.
In another odd grammatical glitch, plural subjects of sentences interact with singular objects. Confusion follows. As one cable TV correspondent reported: "Every day, 1.5 million Americans ride a 747." Visualize the line for the bathroom on that jet. Make that "747s," and the turbulence vanishes.
Just before January's Golden Globe awards, a major newspaper's headline read: "Stars put their best face forward for the Globes." Wow! Eddie Murphy and Helen Mirren share a face?
A cable channel's news crawl correspondingly revealed: "Iraqi authorities find at least 21 bodies, many with nooses around their neck." Who knew so many Iraqis shared one neck?
Consider run-on sentences. A sign in a San Francisco M.U.N.I. streetcar recommends: "Please hold on sudden stops necessary." At the local airport, a men's room sign asks: "Please conserve natural resources only take what you really need."
Would it kill people to spell properly? A New York outdoor display company solicited new business by announcing in huge, black letters: "YUOR AD HERE."
A cable-TV news ticker referred to the "World Tade Center." Another explained that President Bush said he needs wiretaps "to defend Amercia."
Such sloth generates nonsense. Ponder these three items, all from cable-TV news crawls written by practicing journalists: Arab diplomats last August tried to change “a U.S.-French peace plan aimed at ending nearly a month of welfare.” Imagine if Hezbollah lobbed food stamps, rather than rockets, into Israel.
Another channel described a deadly, anti-Semitic attack at a Seattle “Jewfish” center.
And then there’s this beauty: “Disraeli troops kill two Hamas fighters” including one implicated “in the June capture of an Disraeli soldier.”
Today's explosion of rotten English should motivate Americans to speak, write, and broadcast with greater care, clarity, and respect for grammar and spelling. Also, when even college graduates in Congress, newsrooms, and advertising agencies express themselves so sloppily, America's education crisis becomes undeniable.
Is it pedantic to expect linguistic excellence? No. Unless Americans want English to devolve into an impenetrable amalgam of goofs and gaffes, protecting our language, like liberty itself, demands eternal vigilance.
If their teachers are using programs like the Burnette Daily Grammar Practice, they do.
"You might want to concentrate your criticism on clerks who refer to a 'pant'".
Reminds me of a comic bit by Gallagher, I think; "Why do we have A bra, but a pair of pants?" Same bit with "Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?"
At least the pants have legitimate history. At one time the lower male body was clothed with two separate leggings with a codpiece, or merkin, where the modern zipper is.
I rather like one form of the interrogative used as an exclamatory declarative though: Who knew?!
California valley girls, back in the 80s.
"How are we to explain the "smartest woman in the world's" repetitious use of "you know"?
"QUESTION: Is the appostophe denoting the possessive form in "world's" in the correct position?
The apostrophe is correct in that it denotes possession. I would, however, hyphenate the "smartest woman in the world's" to read, smartest-woman-in-the-world's.
IronJack: Both are objects of the verb "needs," and therefore, need to be nouns or noun forms. Youre memorree iz korekt.
The American Heritage Dictionary says that the verb "need" can be transitive or intransitive. In the first case, "The laundry needs to be washed" would be an example of "need" in the intransitive sense. The infinitive is not a noun phrase. In the other case, "The laundry needs washing" shows "need" in the transitive sense. The gerund is functioning as a noun.
Rewriting is necessary to eliminate wordiness. Reducing a sentence to a verbal phrase is one method of eliminating useless wordage and tightening up your writing. Another practice is to use strong active-voiced verbs, which put 'muscle' into your writing. Interesting and variety of vocabulary is also a must in good writing....and simply by reading widely, one absorbs vocabualry...osmotically, IMO...LOL
" "Why do we have A bra, but a pair of pants?""
Indeed, because when you cut fifty bras in half,
you have a hundred beanies with chin straps.
Sorry. It seems a small thing but it does chafe!
"Another practice is to use strong active-voiced verbs, which put 'muscle' into your writing. "
Yes. I eschew adverbs as much as possible for that reason. If I need an adverb, it means the verb is not strong enough.
For some reason, marketing people aren't sure what verb people use to get around this here Interweb thingy. They seem to omit the verb completely - "call us at 800-CARPETS or on the Web at carpets.com".
Another favorite is to leave out the dot after www, but put it in before the suffix - "www-carpets-dot-com." If I had lots of spare time, I'd call these companies and harass them about how wwwcarpets.com doesn't get me to their site.
And I have one sentence construction I defy anyone to diagram: the "just because / doesn't mean" one. "Just because I'm blonde doesn't mean I'm stupid" is not diagrammable and therefore is not a legitimate sentence.
I think "irregardless" was spawned in the same litter as "anyways." Ugh.
"I rather like one form of the interrogative used as an exclamatory declarative though: Who knew?!
If an answer is not expected.
It's easy to affect such a form in written communication, but a little harder to do it verbally? The only way I can think of is by a longer-sounding "knew," which would indicate that the question is rethorical and no response is needed.
"Free Republic posters' idea of a good candidate is ..."
Thanks.
Since a direct object is "a word or group of words that receives the action of an action verb" and "answers the question whom? or what?," it seems to me that both the infinitive phrase (infinitives can function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs) and the gerund (which is always a noun) fit the description of what the laundry needs. In each case, the laundry needs something.
But. . . I've been wrong more times than I can count, in which case I'll accept an explanation of the function performed by the phrase to be washed.
Notice also that in the above sentence I put the period after the quotation mark since the quotation is only a part of the whole sentence and comes at the end. That is a rule of punctuation infrequently, but correctly, used.
A highway is a major, high speed road, usually between municipalities. It may be divided or not, but has direct cross intersections and occasional stops. A freeway is a divided roadway with no stoplights or stop signs, and with limited access through merging exits and entrance ramps. It is called a freeway to distiguish it from a toll road, or tollway, with similar access.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.