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.
"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."
And I did study English.
My two obstacles to languages or anything I study/read are the filtering out of too much information and my poor retention span. Especially memory has been a real handicap ever since I was young boy.
Funny anecdote happened to me last week. Someone overheard me speak in Spanish and said he didn't know I spoke Spanish so well. I told him I'm fluent in four languages, to which he remarked, "Yes, you do speak many languages, but none of them well." LOL! And he was right.
Ciao!
"Tiger Woods, He.....; Alex Rodriguez, he...; Vanessa Williams, she.....
Oftentimes followed by a redundant parenthetical expression, such as: "my father, who is a great man,...."
If you ask yourself the question, "What does the laundry need?" the answer can be "Washing" or "to be washed." In the latter example, the infinitive is a verb construct that serves as a noun, nearly the same as the gerundized "washing."
If I am not too nosey, may I ask what your other 2 languages are?
HAHAHA! I love that "just because" thing. "Just because" becomes a nominative! I prefer "The fact that." Or "being" ... as long as it doesn't become "being as" or "being that."
her bun NEVER gushed? EVER? c'mon!
Neologisms. A whole 'nuther subject.
How about the tendency -- somewhat abated -- to verbify nouns? "[To] dialogue" is perhaps the most egregious example.
I did my time in the grammar war trenches. Language is dynamic; I gave up, knowing I would not be able to stop people from confusing count and non-count nouns, when to add a plural s to test or tourist, or how to punctuate an adverbial clause much less remember how to use the subjunctive. The current dynamic phase is a tidal wave.
I love listening to the president, often do, and I rarely catch him making a grammatical error. But then the president does not enjoy the protective canopy of a sympathetic press and broadcasting corps.
Chesterton also said that his chief objection to a quarrel is that it usually ends a good argument. But I am not really looking for either. You may have a good point.
"a strict old maid w/a bun who never gushed" from carolinamom, then "her bun NEVER gushed?"
At worst, a comma between "bun" and "who" might have clarified, but the "WHO" sufficed to make plain the referent was to the person, not the thing.
I'm just inquisitive about how language works and how its structural rules may be deciphered. IronJack had an interesting take on the subject,
The infinitive "to be washed" serves as a noun form, receiving the action of "needs." It isn't a true object of the transitive, but that's only because of the dual nature of the verb. If you ask yourself the question, "What does the laundry need?" the answer can be "Washing" or "to be washed." In the latter example, the infinitive is a verb construct that serves as a noun, nearly the same as the gerundized "washing."
but I need a little help, Jack, with the sentence I've italicized, specifically "isn't a true object of the transitive" and "dual nature of the verb." I'm having trouble tracking the distinction between the infinitive object and the gerund object.
It cried, "Help me! I'm stuck and I can't get up!"
***As a teacher, I'll respectfully disagree, kitkat. The meaning of "Me and my wife went to the show" is also clear. Just as students should know pronoun cases, I think they should also know the three moods of verbs: indicative, imperative, and subjunctive.***
I agree with you, Rhema. I didn't make my point clear, did I? Let me try again: Since there are so many OBVIOUS mistakes in grammar, such as putting the personal pronoun first, I would like to see teachers spending more time on the basics. At least then when one speaks or writes, the mistake is not as glaring.
I wish ALL teachers were given the time to teach indicative, imperative, and subjunctive verbs.
***Showing my age here, but I have always believed our spiral into semi-literacy began with our having abandoned sentence diagramming in school. It sharpened verbal skills and taught logic simutaneously, great exercize. ***
I taught all three of my children how to diagram their sentences. They all improved in their tests as a result. It is SO simple to teach diagramming. VISUAL AID.
When I asked one teacher whey it wasn't taught, she said, "Oh, that's SO old fashioned." Yeah, sure!
Oooooh, "impact" is the worst of those to me.
The only things I will allow to be spoken of as "impacted" are wisdom teeth. Everything else gets affected. (I also grind my teeth when I hear "impactful.")
In college, I had a roomate who left out every helping verb she possibly could. It drove me absolutely insane. I also have a friend who speaks of her daughter's fits as "come-aparts" For example : "She had a come-apart in the store today." It's all I can do to keep my mouth shut.
***I don't know when "irregardless" became a word, regardless, I hear it a lot.***
I suspect the grammarians gave up when President Eisenhower used the word, "irregardless," on T.V.
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.