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.
Dr. Strunk? Is that you?
True Story: A middle school teacher laughingly told the story of one of her students who was earnestly trying to follow her instruction to use colorful vocabulary in his descriptive writing. The little fellow described an autumn scene and the "hemorrhoids of leaves". LOL
I chuckle at the construction loan companies often use when setting out how much money you can a borrow: "Up to five thousand dollars ... and more!"
I like your solution! When there's a bump in your sentence road, drive around it. ;)
It has been some thirty years ago, a community college English teacher asked for a sentence that might clarify use of "who and whom". Best I recall it it, mine went; "People to whom the use of who and whom is confusing are probably those who lack the exposure to properly spoken English enjoyed by those to whom the use of who and whom come naturally." She accused me of plagiarism (From whom asked I) until I stepped up and filled a blackboard diagramming what I had just said. Yeah, I was a wise-ass.
baubau, one thing I have learned is not to argue fine points of grammar with those who learned English as a second language; you actually studied what I took for granted. You know for a certainty, while I often rely on the "Does it sound right?" rule. Literacy fell on me in a heap, pre-school, I followed my Father's finger as he read to me until one day the code all came together. His finger stopped moving, I kept reading, and I have never stopped. Thank God for a parent who did not turn my young mind over to the state to educate.
Nope. Never heard of him/her. (Sentence fragments serve here. LOL)
You're welcome. :)
I agree with rephrasing the sentence.
"How are we to explain the repetitive use of "you know" by the alleged Smartest Woman in the World?"
Recasting her into an "alleged" makes it clearer that smart she ain't. LOL!
The word "it" has been dropped. "Just because I'm blonde[,it] doesn't mean I'm stupid." It would flow better if the two halves were reversed: "[It] doesn't mean I'm stupid, just because I'm blonde."
As Keats wrote, "Much have I traveled in the realms of gold."
Diagram a sentence!?
Whot dat?
The reason I brought it up was that your comments on concise writing echo Srunk's, which I used to have taped to my monitor:
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
That one gets me too! Grrrrr!
It's so good to know I'm not the only grammar curmudgeon out there.
Thank you, thank you...that is the one that always gets my blood boiling.....I am constantly correcting people....even sometimes English teachers.....who, not that!!!!
A long time ago, I had a dog named Peeve. He was my pet, Peeve.
One town council member, where I used to live, muttered to herself for over an hour after someone informed her that "irregardless" was not a word.
Do not overlook "That book is a good read," and "do lunch."
ESPN and far too many other sportscasters use player names followed by he or she.
Tiger Woods, He.....; Alex Rodriguez, he...; Vanessa Williams, she.....
I remember one of them telling the class that in constructing an essay we needed to work really hard on the opening to grab the reader's attention and to work really hard to make the closing a strong one. Then, rather impishly, he added, "If you have any junk, throw it in the middle."
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