Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jarre; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous.
Mitchell was once given an “Award of Merit” from “The Society for the Advancement of Good English,” which at the same time named the Nashville Songwriters Association as its “Top Dishonoree.” He was not pleased, and wrote:
from "The Goodness of Good English"
The Underground Grammarian
vol. 8, no. 8 - Dec., 1984
It will not be impertinent, therefore, to ask this: Would some badness have been driven out and replaced by goodness if only Gershwin had written, "Bess, You Are My Woman Now," and "It Isn’t Necessarily So"?
We do believe that "country and western" lyrics are full of gaucheries, vulgarisms, double negatives, failures of agreement, split infinitives, and all other possible outrages against standard English. But why is that so? Is there in such texts some intention to deceive, some pretense to substance where there is none? ....
In studying the texts that provide our substance, we give very little attention to what is wrong, and much to what is false. We are neither injured nor insulted by him who says that he ain’t got no dog. It is not likely, even if he happens to be lying, that his "wrongness" is the clue by which we can discover his lying.
We would feel much better about all this if only that award had come from a Society for the Advancement of Correct English. We do prefer that sort, for it almost always provides the best hope of uttering clear truth, but also, as grammar enthusiasts would do well to remember, the best hope of contriving a cunning lie.
There is no goodness or badness in English. Goodness and badness are in the deeds of persons. The proper study of mankind is man, and English is an interesting thing he does—well or ill.
Here is an example of a misuse of grammar designed to deceive and distort the truth, to offer "some pretense to substance where there is none" -- the sort of misuse against which Mitchell relentlessly inveighed.
from "All-Purpose Gobbledygook"
The Underground Grammarian
vol. 3, no. 9 - Dec., 1979
"Minnesota post-secondary education is at the threshold of what may become the most dramatic transition ever experienced in the state’s educational enterprise, according to the Higher Education Coordinating Commission. Several partially interrelated circumstances and forces are converging in such a manner as to cause a potentially profound impact on the shape of education beyond high school, according to Making the Transition, the Commission’s biennial report. Minnesota post-secondary education also is faced with considerable uncertainty, says the report. . . . Some of the uncertainty stems from conflicting and changing societal forces that impinge on education, and some emanates from lack of agreement on what constitutes desirable and undesirable modifications and directions for post-secondary education."
“Grammaticaller Than Thou”
Once they are fully appraised of the situation...
...they don’t have to go to tim buck two to see something spectacular...
...you’ve peaked my curiosity...
...takes passengers on a 4-mile journey from the Cripple Creek Museum through the first two weeks of October.
I like he and his wife.
...made you and I a promise.
The most important part of your sexuality is that you and your husband discuss any concerns about sexual relations with your doctor.
No transactions are cancelled do to non-usage of Home Banking.
...less calories
Use liscensed contractors for work.
I’m glad it’s her and not me that is expecting.
SOME OF you have been collecting bits and pieces like those shown above and making fun of them. Some of you have even decided to make fun of the way other people pronounce words. We can not understand why you would do such things, and we wish that you would rethink the meaning of what you do.
We wrote, years ago, about some boy who said "I aint seen no dog." Of him, we said little then, but will say more now. We say that, as far as we can tell from what he says, he is not a liar, not a seducer, not a wheedler, not an evader, not a charlatan pretending to understanding that he does not have, and, to be complete, that he has given us no evidence whatsoever of badness. He is just a little boy who talks that way. And, furthermore, he talks well. Yes, well. He says exactly what he means to say, no more and no less. In his words, there is neither Vice nor Folly.
The charlatans and the liars, and all of their ilk, speak better than that boy, in the most trivial sense, but far, far worse in the only sense that matters.
Ask yourself Kant’s question. What would our world be like if everyone did as that little boy did? What would your life be like if politicians and lawyers and bureaucrats and social change agents and columnists and lobbyists and all the rest of us always said right out, as best we could, exactly what we meant, no more and no less? And if we had such a world, how important would it be if your congressman’s letter says "your" when it should say "you’re," or if the grocery store advertises Turkey’s, or if the man who announces the weather on television says "between you and I"? If such things truly pain you, you have remedy: don’t read, don’t buy, don’t watch.
Some of the errors cited above are so trivial that they can only with passionate attentiveness be sighted at all. Are they worth such labor? Of such labor, what fruit can there be except the satisfaction of some deep need to be better than someone else, and not better in any important sense, but only better in the observation of convention. That’s nice, but it is only a social grace; it is not a virtue. If we delight in it, let us not forget that so do the liars and charlatans.