ࡱ> Root Entry F;1Table"WordDocumentSummaryInformation(  !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~" !#$%&'./0123Root Entry FQ 1Table"WordDocument SummaryInformation(  !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~JQJ00 Heading 3$@&5JJ Heading 4$$@&a$5B*CJOJQJphHH Heading 5$$@&a$B*CJOJQJph<A@<Default Paragraph Font6B@6 Body Text5CJOJQJ,@,Header  !, ,Footer  !&)@!& Page Number@P@2@ Body Text 2+ther than ghee. Or the famous French writer Guy de Maupassant, perhaps somebody mispronounced his name. Then there was Guy Madison, a Hollywood star in the early 1950s. The Encyclopedia Britannica lists 498 entries for persons with the name Guy, beginning with: Guy: king of Jerusalem who lost that Crusader kingdom in a struggle with rival Conrad of Montferrat. Guy: count of Flanders (from 1278) and margrave of Namur (Namen). He was the son of Margaret, countess of Flanders and Hainaut. Then we have The Merriam-Webster Dictionary which says this: Etymology: Guy Fawkes 1 often capitalized: a grotesque effigy of Guy Fawkes traditionally displayed and burned in England on Guy Fawkes Day 2 chiefly British: a person of grotesque appearance 3 a: MAN, FELLOW b: PERSON -- used in plural to refer to the members of a group regardless of sex What Websters neglects to add is that the use of guys when addressing a group of persons of either sex or both sexes is a colloquialism. It is not standard English. Could you imagine the pastor of a church, a rabbi, the President of the United States, the president or chancellor of a university, addressing a group of people as You guys? How inane! I know of a chairperson of a high school foreign language department who addressed every e-mail to the members of the department with the salutation, Hey, guys. Of course, she didnt miss a beat when she chaired meetings with her department. Okay, guys But, of course, in our society, where we feel the need to pander to every taste lest anyones feelings get hurt, and in a desperate desire to be liked by everybody, teachers especially, some teachers anyway (not all), are not loath to addressing their class with: Listen up, guys. Then we have the legitimate and colorful variations of guy: fall guy, wise guy, little guy. But if we knew the original meaning in the British sense (the Guy Fawkess sense), I doubt we would use it so blithely. Do the British, in fact, use this term in addressing an individual or two or more persons? Im not sure how this irritating form of address evolved, although I think it was a male thing. At any rate, at some point, I dont know exactly when, Americans began addressing groups of men as guys until it evolved into calling women alone or a group of men and women together as guys I guess its supposed to sound cool. Or should I say kool to reflect the nuances of advertisement spelling? They might as well say, Hey, fellas! Which brings me to another topic, which Ill discuss later but merely mention in passing at this point: the use of Hey as an exclamation. Hey, I didnt realize You get my gist. But coming back to the subject of you guys, exactly where and how and when it started, I dont know. Probably with sportscasters or television anchors whom their audiences take for authorities on the English language. After all, how in the world would a television network put someone on the air if he didnt speak correct English? And so it becomes a self-perpetuating disaster. Inundated with 24/7 news and sports, we hear the same mistakes repeated again and again until they become part of almost everyones speech. Regrettably so. I dont want to belabor the point, but why does addressing people as guys sound better to most speakers than the subject pronoun you? What is so wrong or terrible about saying you? When addressing more than one person in the English language, the subject pronoun you is understood to be plural, whereas in Spanish or French the distinction is made clear because the Romance languages provide not only a distinction in the subject pronoun but in the verb ending (usted habla, ustedes hablan in Spanish; tu parles and vous parlez in French, which is formal singular as well ), thus there is no need to fall back on a crutch like you guys to the point that it has become an absurdity and an indication of the lack of skill in the use of the English language. Yet we are a country that insists on political correctness. How odd! We demand that people be politically correct so as not to offend, yet we dont seem to care how many people we offend with the use of substandard English. YOU GUYS, YOU GUYS, YOU GUYS... I wish I could take a hatchet to it the way you take a hatchet to a tree stump. Even Harry Smith on the CBS Morning program, as articulate as he is, feels compelled to sign off from an interview with two female reporters with, Okay, guys, thanks. Its an epidemic. Why does society feel obligated to gravitate towards the lowest common denominator in terms of language usage? Rather than elevate dialogue to standard usage, the general population tends to drift towards the inane. Add to that the other overused and inane phrase: I WAS LIKE. I was like.wow, I was likescared, I was likehappy, I was likenauseous. Yes, and you high school and university and college students, government officials, et al., are driving me to despair with your inability to construct an intelligent, articulate phrase. Can no one simply say I was scared, I was stunned, I was happy? How difficult is that? The African girls at Oprah Winfreys Academy in South Africa put most American students to shame with their ability to articulate feelings and ideas in clear, concise, standard English. Absolutely put them to shame! There are no I was like in their speech, no You guys, no it was wow in their interviews. They express their feelings in absolutely beautiful English and with a vocabulary, I dare say, that exceeds that of most American students, not to mention their love of learning. And yet I must say how much I admire those American students who viewed Oprahs Living A Dream, in which these African girls spoke of their hopes and aspirations, and how articulate these young students were in expressing their feelings about the academy and the girls who interviewed with Oprah. It gave me hope. We do have Americans who can articulate their feelings in error-free English and with good phrasing and vocabulary. I ask, why arent there more of them? How have we sunk so low in our use of the English language? Instead of eloquence creeping into our language, inane phrasing such as those above are repeated over and over again by the talking heads on television and people in government. As for sports announcers, I give up. Although, I must reserve praise for Jon Miller. He does an excellent job. He is also great at the correct pronunciation of Latino names, and relishes saying them. Another much overused exclamation: WOW! How is that educated people like Katie Couric and Oprah Winfrey (both of whom I adore by the way) are so dependent upon this exclamation in the face of something that is amazing or remarkable or astounding? Maybe people should check their Thesaurus from time to time in an effort to expand their vocabulary and add some variety to their remarks. I think that people like Katie and Oprah should set the example and move beyond exclamations that are typical of high school students who seem to have very little vocabulary in their repertoire. Another pet peeve! For some reason, people believe that the verb feel and felt must be followed by the comparative preposition like when telling how they feel about something. And I hear this all the time from educated people, not just athletes and coaches. I felt like we could have done better. I feel like we can do better. Wrong, people, wrong! The like serves no function in the sentence except to betray an ignorance of standard English usage. I even hear this from well-educated people, like Jeanne Cummings, political correspondent for politico.com on a recent airing of Inside Washington on March 9. 2007, in which she said, I feel like that. in discussing one particular issue on the program What the speaker really means to say is this: I felt we could have done better. Feel, by the way, is merely a substitute for believe. I believe we could have done better. Would anyone say I believe like we could have done better? Of course, not. Just kick like into the trashcan where it belongs. Another one that falls into this category is seems like where the correct form is, It seems that he is right, not It seems like he is right, whereas you would say, It seems like a big mistake to do that. To put things in proper perspective, like is a preposition and is used in making a comparison or stating ones feelings: 1) I felt like a jerk. 2) I feel like taking a stroll. It can also be used as an adjective, as in, People of like abilities, meaning people of similar abilities. Another common mistake in using but is this: Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, as much I like him, has the annoying habit of saying, I have no doubt but that The but in the sentence, besides being grammatically wrong, is totally irrelevant. What is wrong with, I have no doubt that. which is the correct phrasing? PLEASE MR. RUMSFELD, millions are watching and listening. Can you steer them in the right direction? Is there anyone left in the United States who can speak eloquently and correctly. Bill Clinton, for all his foibles, was one of our more articulate presidents. Of all the times I heard him speak, I dont recall him making any blatant grammatical mistakes. His sentences were always articulately and intelligently constructed. Whereas when George Bush speaks off the cuff, I cringe, fearing the worst, just as I cringe when I hear most athletes interviewed. It is just absolutely embarrassing to hear them stumble all over themselves (although Bush has improved, I believe he is trying and does care how he comes across), littering the American landscape with their poorly constructed, inarticulate sentences. And theyre not even embarrassed about it. Ignorance and poor speech are no longer reasons for embarrassment. There are others, to be sure, who are as equally eloquent as Bill Clinton or former Israeli Prime Minister Abba Eban, or Tony Blair of Great Britain, but they seem to be a growing minority. On any given day, hearing a college student interviewed by a news broadcaster, leaves me not only laughing but with the abiding conviction that neither English grammar nor articulation of thought is taught much less valued in our schools. On any given day, it is enough to make your skin crawl to hear segments of our population interviewed on television and litter the airwaves with their jumbled thoughts. Call-in radio programs are another source of the verbal litter that clogs our airwaves. It is simply pathetic, a source of chagrin to hear the daily atrocities committed to the English language by people who simply do not care how they sound when trying to articulate an intelligent thought. HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE MAD. Well, were you or werent you mad? Which is it? This kind of talk comes from indecisiveness of thought, lack of conviction in what one is saying, and from the fact that the ability to articulate a cohesive thought among the vast majority of Americans has all but disappeared from the American landscape. It is sad and disheartening. How many Hollywood stars, so eloquent before the camera when speaking their lines, suddenly sound like any other poorly educated person in our society? This stems from lack of pride in language, pride in speaking correctly. Some people, by virtue of opening their mouths to speak, destroy whatever image we previously had of them. Nowhere is this deficiency in language more evident than among our multi-million-dollar-a-year athletes and sports analysts who place more emphasis on buying their next Jaguar and building their million-dollar homes rather than hiring an English tutor and a speech coach to teach them how to speak? But no one in America seems too embarrassed to stand before a camera and allow his or her ignorance of the English language to be laid bare for all to hear. And stuff. Another pet peeve is the seeming addiction of some to the much overused and superfluous interjection of the catchall noun stuff to complete their sentences. We went shopping and stuff. Now what sense does that make? And stuff? Is it no longer adequate to say, We went shopping and did a few other things. Why the need for such superfluous tags to speech? All these things are nothing more than crutches that make the speaker sound limited in what he wishes to say. Be that as it may, I wish speakers would stuff the stuff business already. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000, provides us with this definition and use of stuff as a noun: ...The material out of which something is made or formed; substance. 2. The essential substance or elements; essence: We are such stuff/As dreams are made on (Shakespeare).... Now, that sounds fine with Shakespeare, of course, because he makes lyrical use of the noun. He doesnt use it as a crutch or a tag phrase. Then we have this more detailed definition from Merriam-Webster, which also provides us with the origin of the word and its multiple and legitimate uses in speech: Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French estuffes goods, from estuffer to fill in (with rubble), furnish, equip, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German stopfOn to stop up, from Vulgar Latin *stuppare 1 : materials, supplies, or equipment used in various activities: as a obsolete : military baggage b : PERSONAL PROPERTY 2 : material to be manufactured, wrought, or used in construction 3 : a finished textile suitable for clothing; especially : wool or worsted material 4 a : literary or artistic production b : writing, discourse, talk, or ideas of little value : TRASH 5 a : an unspecified material substance or aggregate of matter b : something (as a drug or food) consumed or introduced into the body by humans c : a matter to be considered d : a group or scattering of miscellaneous objects or articles ; also : nonphysical unspecified material 6 a : fundamental material : SUBSTANCE b : subject matter 7 : special knowledge or capability 8 a : spin imparted to a thrown or hit ball to make it curve or change course b : the movement of a baseball pitch out of its apparent line of flight : the liveliness of a pitch But nowhere does it legitimize, We went dancing and stuff, for example. CHAPTER TWO I vs. me and We vs. us Another sore spot is the fact that nine out of ten people do not know the object of a preposition or a verb when they hear it, thus the other prevalent faux pas (I have even heard this from English teachers, believe it or not): Tommy invited John and I out to dinner. Remove John from the sentence and you end up with: Tommy invited I out to dinner. I was glad to see that Hemingway had it right in The Sun Also Rises where Jake Barnes, in Pamplona at the fiesta de San Fermn, says, They took Bill and me by the arms and put us in the circle. Phewww, could you imagine one of our great writers not knowing the difference between a subject and the object of a verb? I mean, really, how hard is it? Yet, it is repeated over and over again, in everyday speech, in t.v. and movie dialogue where you would think the scriptwriters would know better. Where were these people trained in English? In India? In Russia? No such luck. Fluent English-speakers from those countries often do a better job with English than our native speakers. Equally as bad is this one: He went with Jane and I for lunch? Remove Jane and you end up with: He went with I for lunch. In both cases, the verb invited and the preposition with take the pronoun me, because no one in his right mind would say Tommy invited I out to dinner, or He went with I to the game, unless that person wants to sound like an idiot. Yet, put an object pronoun after verb or a preposition and people (most people, too many of them educated people, people with college degrees) invariably lose their way in the vast labyrinth of the English language that, for some inexplicable reason, so overwhelms them that it causes them to end up using the subject pronoun I where it is, of course, as plain as the nose on your face, that the sentence requires the object pronoun me. Are we talking rocket science here? Are we talking logarithms or the theory of relativity here? And yet the incorrect use of I and we as the objects of verbs and prepositions remains a ubiquitous and nasty little faux pas of an endless string of speakers. Even George W. Bush knows better. For all the criticism he gets for his lack of eloquence and occasional slip-ups in the English language, I have never heard him fall into the grammatical error of making I or us the object of a preposition, a faux pas which seems to have countless others firmly by the throat, including some of his most ardent critics. For the most part, this faux pas is blatantly rampant. Terri Hatcher, in a recent scene from Desperate Housewives, spoke the following line: Between you and I Now, is this the fault of the scriptwriters or Terri Hatcher herself? A great looking gal, but she doesnt know the object of a preposition from the subject of a verb? But I guess that doesnt matter when you have great looks. So what if you sound ignorant when it comes to proper grammar? You can still get paid one million dollars per episode. Ignorance on the basic points of language never held anyone back in America. Isnt this a great country or what! Well, whatever! Isnt that the attitude of Americans towards their own language? Whatever! And class and money seem to be no guarantee against grammatical ignorance. On The Today Show, Wednesday June 1, 2005, Kathy Hilton, Paris Hiltons mother, in an interview with Matt Lauer concerning her daughters sudden engagement to her boyfriend (the name escapes me), in response to Mr. Lauers question, whether the announcement took her and her husband by surprise, replied: It really didnt surprise Rick and I that much Oh, come on, Mrs. Hilton! Surely you know better! The faux pas sent shock waves through my system. Now you would think with all that class and money, a person would know her grammar, but apparently not. But really, should we expect people to be grammarians just because they have class and wealth? I guess not. And respected journalist Bob Woodward, no less, on NBCs evening news of June 2, 2005, speaking about Mark Felt, the FBI agent who was the mysterious Deep Throat, said to Brian Williams: Mark Felt was a great help to Carl [Bernstein] and I Really, Mr. Woodward, as a respected journalist, is this the standard you want to set for the English language? Or are you in a state of denial? Now, where have I heard that phrase before? I throw up my hands. Is there anybody left in the United States who knows the difference between the subject pronoun I and its counterpart me which serves as the object of a preposition and a verb? I havent even heard George Bush, for all his shortcomings with language, make that one. Thank goodness! In The Washington Post of April 18, 2005, a boyfriend is quoted in an interview regarding his missing girlfriend: Her and I had a big fight. When did her become the subject of a verb? Is this the quality of education in America? In the same newspaper, a day later, in the Sports section, Frank Robinson, the manager of the new Washington Nationals baseball team and a man I greatly admire for his ability to articulate a sentence, often better than college students I have heard interviewed, said this of his wife and his daughters concern for his health in his job as manager: Her and my daughter want me to be around for a while And a woman interviewed on a morning program about parents who leave their children in locked cars, either through negligence or plain stupidity, spoke of one youngster who had been left alone in the car by a parent and put the car into shift and almost ran over myself and my son Myself is a reflexive pronoun to be used with the subject of a verb. It is never the object of a verb. She really meant to say that the kid almost ran over me and my son, or to be absolutely correct grammatically and to put her sons life ahead of hers, she should have said, almost ran over my son and me. Well, I guess she was under a lot of stress in trying to articulate what had happened, but I suspect that people who know proper grammar continue to speak it even in the most trying of situations, although I have heard commentators on CNN and other channels, in a rush to get their points across, forget that the comparative er requires no qualifying adjective before it: I tried harder being the correct form, not more harder, whereas one could say I tried much harder. In any case, more does not precede a comparative adjectival form. We even find the accomplished and distinguished British novelist Ford Madox Ford falling into this trap in The Good Soldier, where he has the narrator saying, I find on looking at my diaries, that on September 4th 1904 Edward accompanied Florence and myself to Paris (Part Two, Chapter 2). Here, we are dealing with a wealthy, educated class, so you would expect the narrator would know better and say, accompanied Florence and me. At least, he didnt say accompanied Florence and I, thank goodness. You would think that people, especially those holding a bachelors degree or advanced degrees, would feel mortified by their lack of knowledge of basic grammar, of standard English usage, but in a feel-good society where no one is ever to be corrected on his patterns (and notice I used the impersonal he and the tiresome his or her business) or bad behavior, because you could leave that individual scarred for life rather than properly educated, what does proper speech matter as long as you get your idea across? But to be sure, what does Websters say on the subject of reflexive pronouns? Function: pronoun 1 : that identical one that is I -- used reflexively , for emphasis , or in absolute constructions 2 : my normal, healthy, or sane condition Equally as bad as the confusion over I and me is the failed use of the object pronoun us where a verb or preposition precedes it. They invited Larry and we out to dinner. Remove Larry, and you have they invited we out to dinner. How absurd! They invited Larry and us out to dinner. How hard is that? Please, people (or should I say guys?), get it together already. The same thing happens after the preposition for: If it werent for Larry and ______________ . Now, go ahead, tell me the answer: I or me? Once more you would think that television and Hollywood script writers would know enough not to fall into this trap, but they dont, evidently, not for all the frequency with which one hears this all too common grammatical mistake. Between you and I; Between she and I. Please, people, please. Listen to yourselves. You would think the actors would know better, presuming all of them are high school graduates and have a love of language. At least, I believe that actors have a love of language since they depend on it for their livelihood. To reiterate, the correct form is: Between you and me. Between her and me. Why? Because between is a preposition and as such takes the object pronoun, not the subject pronoun. The same goes for the preposition from. A recently elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives said in a television interview (1/04/2006), regarding his stance on any increase in troop levels in Iraq, that any statement that would come from my colleagues and I would only come after careful consideration. Again, this is a failure to recognize that from is a preposition and that prepositions are followed by object pronouns not subject pronouns: from my colleagues and me is what he should have said, because eliminate colleagues and you wind up with from I. Now who talks that way? Is such syntax so complex that educated Americans dont know that any sentence with a preposition requires an object pronoun? In general, foreign students who come to the United States with a strong grounding in the English language, have a better command of English grammar than Americans do. What are we doing wrong? In case anyone is still confused, here is the list I always drew up for my Spanish students when showing them the Spanish equivalent of subject and object pronouns in English: Subject Pronouns Object Pronouns Singular Singular I me You you He, she him, her Plural Plural We us You you They them How do we correct this woeful deficiency? How do we instill pride in language in our populace? It seems like a losing battle, especially when day after day you hear the same grammatical mistakes repeated constantly on news and sports broadcasts, so that the listeners come to believe this must be correct. Gee, if Katie Couric, or Matt Lauer, or Dan Rather said it, it must be so. What about Dan (I always check my facts) Rather? Can you believe him as far as his use of grammar? Run, ran, have run/choose, chose, chosen Even the past participle of certain verbs seems to escape people. How often have I heard people say: he had ran, rather than he had run? Or like Hannah Storm on the CBS Early Show of March 5, 2003, asking Naomi Campbell, if you would have chose Come on Hannah, youre on television! Millions of eyes are on you. Get the language right: If you would have chosen. Come, came, have come The same thing happens with the past participle of come. Many people dont know the correct form. Mike Ditka, a graduate of Notre Dame and a great individual, said on CNBC with Sue Herrera, on 1/22/07, in talking about the Bears facing off against the Colts in the XLI Super Bowl, if he would have came with respect to some member of the Bears (I dont remember who the subject was). Now, wouldnt you think that a graduate of Notre Dame and someone who once considered running for public office would know his past participles? Or am I asking too much of American education and American culture? Snuck or sneaked? Isnt there anyone left who knows the answer? Another incessant source of annoyance is the constant use of snuck as the preterit for sneak; there is no such preterit form of the verb sneak. Snuck does not exist either as a simple past or as a past participle of the verb. Yet I have heard and seen the incorrect snuck (it puts hackles on the back of my neck when I hear it) expressed not only by newspaper columnists and television anchors, but by novelists who really should know better since language is so important to them. He sneaks around, he sneaked around, he has sneaked around, he had sneaked around is the correct sequence of verb tenses. Yet it is said over and over again by our so-called educated class: snuck. Wolf Blitzer on CNNs Situation Room is another of those who seems particularly fond of the nonexistent preterit snuck, and he as a law degree. As John Stoessel would say: Give me a break! So much for lawyers! You cant depend on them to get it right either. Just listen to them on CNN or Larry King Live. You can fill a notebook with their grammatical mistakes. Yet language is their living. Some of them are the worst offenders; you would think that professionals whose livelihood is based on the minutiae of language would know better. Heres what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say on the subject from its on-line Frequently Asked Questions: Usage: Is 'snuck', as the past tense of 'sneak', a real word? There is a helpful summary in The New Fowler's Modern English Usage by R.W. Burchfield (OUP 1998): sneak (verb): Its origins are shrouded in mystery ... From the beginning, and still in standard British English, the past tense and past participle forms are sneaked. Just as mysteriously, in a little more than a century, a new past tense form, snuck, has crept and then rushed out of dialectal use in America, first into the areas of use that lexicographers label jocular or uneducated, and more recently, has reached the point where it is a virtual rival of sneaked in many parts of the English-speaking world. But not in Britain, where it is unmistakably taken to be a jocular or nonstandard form. Bryan A. Garner calls snuck 'nonstandard' in his Dictionary of Modern American Usage (OUP 1998). Some British dictionaries provide usage notes warning against the use of 'snuck'. I believe that the foregoing statements should set the record straight. Personally, snuck sounds like a word a kid just learning the English language might use. Its usage is definitely widespread among the uneducated, although the educated class are not immune. Not lawyers who appear on Larry King Live, not congressmen who stand up to pontificate or give their views before the cameras. It is downright embarrassing when you hear these blatant grammatical missteps practiced by the so-called elite of our society. I dont know why I expect more from lawyers and U.S. Senators and Representatives, and Secretaries of government. Is it because they have studied law where language is all-important, with all the fine-tuning that goes into contracts and legislation? Am I expecting too much of our educated class? My ears screeched when I heard Tom Hanks at the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors use snuck as the past tense of sneak, and this before thousands in the audience and millions at home. Wont anyone tell these people, clue them in to save them in? Doesnt anyone pay attention to language? Does anyone care? It amazes me no end how much care people take with their personal appearancetheir clothes, their hair, their smileand yet have so little regard for what comes out of their mouths in the form of bad grammar, as if grammar and articulation were not part of the total package of how one wants to be perceived. If clothes make the man, or woman, bad grammar and weak articulation certainly show that the emperor has no clothes. It is like watching the unraveling of a beautiful garment. The total picture just falls apart. We spend billions on personal grooming in this country, hours in spas and beauty salons, hours building six-pack abs, hours running and jogging for better health and so little time working on articulation and taking to heart the basics of the English language. All of the examples I have cited above even find their way into movie scripts where you would think that scriptwriters would know better. But no one seems to know better. And what is worse, no one seems to care. I often have the feeling when hearing an inarticulate person being interviewed that I am watching someone who is wearing mental shackles. He has never learned or cared to learn how he is perceived by others through his pattern of speech. Do we not admire eloquence on the stage and screen? Why is that so many people feel that they have to dumb down their speech in order to be accepted? If they only knew how absurd and pathetic they sound, I think they would attempt to improve their language skills. But nothing seems to embarrass the citizens of our country. Not being caught with ninety thousand in cash in a freezer at home. Not being indicted by the Senate for bribery while sitting on a federal bench. Not having a tryst in the oval office with an intern. Not riding in stretch limos while hyping global warming and preaching conservation. Not living in a 22,000 square foot house that eats up energy while, suddenly and out of the blue, putting in an appearance in New Orleans and hugging Katrina victims to announce a run for the White House. We seem to live in an age in which embarrassment over anything is non-existent. What hope is there when it comes to a mere trifling thing such as English usage? CHAPTER THREE Fun as an adjective, so says Websters Third International Dictionary, but still I detest it. It really does sound juvenile! When and how did fun, a noun, become an adjective in the English language? Or has it always been so? Could it be that the fun house we went to at an amusement park was taken for the proper use of fun before every other noun in the English language? The only other uses of fun as an adjectival form are found in these odd entries in Websters: fun run and fun park (neither of which I have ever heard of, but that doesnt mean that they dont exist). To be sure, we do use nouns as adjectives where it is the norm in a compound expression: sleigh ride, barrel-house laugh, beer belly, snow storm, wind storm, rain storm, love fest [feast, really], townhouse, country house, guest house; you get my drift. And Websters defends its use as an adjective: Main Entry: (3) fun Function: adjective Inflected Form(s): sometimes funner sometimes funnest 1 : providing entertainment, amusement, or enjoyment 2 : full of fun : PLEASANT And to top it off, it defends funner and funnest, and I was ready to take some people to task for using those oddball terms. I still prefer, It was more fun, and It was the most fun I ever had, but I suppose Americans cant handle such complex sentence structures, and so we reduce everything to beer joint, frat, and advertising jargon, such as nite for night. No wonder our kids cant spell. Even if funner and funnest are legitimate, I still dont believe they represent standard-English usage. I cast my vote on the side of Barbara Wallraff in her book Word Court. For my money, shes got it right. Im with you Barbara. Lets hold peoples feet to the fire and use standard English in our professional lives. I nearly fell over (but now I suppose I should be chastised) when I heard a highly respected reporter on the Middle East, who said of a particular experience in London, that it was the funnest time he had, (and I notice that my spell check has redlined funner and funnest, so am I off base?)this, before an audience of some two thousand people. He had me shaking my head. Funner and funnest are what you might expect of a kindergartner, not an adult, and an educated one at that. And the sad part was that he was otherwise quite articulate. If we must reinvent the English language, why cant we do it on the side of eloquent phrasing instead of such inanities and absurdities of speech? Couldnt he have said, It was the most rewarding experience I ever had, or It was the most exhilarating time I ever had, or I just had the greatest time? Funnest? Give me a break!!! This same reporter insisted on saying that his time in London was a fun experience. And again, Websters says that it is all right (or is it, alright?). Nevertheless, it sounds like jargon I would expect from our high school population. Even Oprah has to get in on the act. She is a lover of books, and by virtue of that, a lover of language, yet she insists on saying of something that she found enjoyable, It was so fun. Are we so lazy that we cant use proper English and qualify fun, which is a noun, at least the last time I checked Websters, with the adjective that should precede it, by saying, It was so much fun? Adverb (so) + adjective (much) + noun (fun). Is the formula that esoteric that it defies comprehension? Would we think to say, It was so enjoyment (noun)? Of course, not. Then how did the noun fun get turned into an adjective? What can one conclude but to say that English is no longer taught in our schools? It is merely tolerated as another minor inconvenience on the way to a higher education. High school English teachers seem defenseless in the face of this onslaught of incorrect use of language and disinclined to correct it for fear of offending someone. The norm today is to let students express themselves in any way they see fit so that we do not hamper their creativity or embarrass them. God forbid! No one wants to be corrected. After all, a kid of fifteen already knows all there is to know, right? Why should students even bother going to school? They have their iPods and cell phones, and 24/7-text messaging. What else is there in the world? Better to let students drift along on a river of mistakes than to correct them so that they might sound like they had two cents in their heads. College students do not fair much better. The ones I hear interviewed on campus often speak with the same halting and incorrect phrasing of sentences as their younger counterparts, proving that when they enter university or college they just bring their poor habits with them and show no inclination to improve their speech or use of the English language. Thus, we graduate from our high schools and colleges far too many students who come across as verbally crippled in their use of language and formation of thoughts. Whose fault is this? Who is to blame for this demise in the correctness of the English language? It strikes me as a mental and cultural malaise, much in the same way that the popular phrase that our caring politicians love to toss around: NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND. But they fail to add: NO MATTER HOW LAZY, NO MATTER HOW DISINCLINED TO ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE, NO MATTER HOW MISERABLE THEIR HOME LIFE, NO MATTER HOW DISCRUPTIVE OR FOUL-MOUTHED OR BELLIGERANT. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND. Everybody needs to be stroked rather than instructed. Is this a nation of wimps? You wouldnt think so to look at our military. But on the high school level! How do these people even function in life once they are out of school? Do their parents accompany them on their jobs and write excuses to their bosses when they dont perform or show up for work? Thats material for another book. The problem of deficiency in the use of the English language in our country has at its root the same base cause for the lagging standards in our schools: A CULTURAL MALAISE. A desire to have it easy. And this is reflected in the use of language. CHAPTER FOUR More annoyances in the misuse of language Close proximity? From the American Heritage Dictionary Book of English Usage. A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996. Proximity: The state, quality, sense, or fact of being near or next; closeness. Close proximity: Strictly speaking, the phrase close proximity says nothing that is not said by proximity itself. But like a few other common redundancies such as old adage and mental telepathy, this usage is too widespread and too innocuous to be worth objecting to. Be that as it may, it is another example of the lack of precision in English usage on the part of the vast majority of people. I even find this lapse among such accomplished writers as Francisco Goldman (winner of prestigious writing grants and whose work I greatly admire: The Long Night of White Chickens was my first introduction to his work). In his most recent work, The Divine Husband, he writes on page 30, in the last sentence: All of that had been known to occur anyway, because when bringing Indios, or indeed any men, including priests, into close proximity with nuns, you could never be too vigilant, no matter how docile or polite they initially, externally seemed. I will say no more about proximity. Let the word speak for itself, as it should. Different than or different from? The correct form is different from, but our great American journalists and newscasters insist that something is different than. Than is a comparative: bigger than, smaller than. We are not different than our fellow man in France; rather we are different from him. It is sad that we cannot rely upon our media to inculcate proper speech and correct usage of language. Instead, they compound the already atrocious problem. Movie and television scripts are no better. You would think that scriptwriters would know correct English, but they dont. But you hear it all the time in dialogue: different than rather than the correct different from. One of the most tiresome words in the English language: Fuck as an exclamation point! The most overused word in the English language, to the point it has become meaningless. A vulgarity that has become commonplace and trite; meant to shock and express anger, it merely underscores the lack of articulate speech on the part of far too many teenagers and adults. Recently, when I saw again the Richard Gere movie, Primal Fear, where he is a lawyer defending Edward Norton for the murder of a priest, Gere goes ballistic and flies into a tirade against his assistants for failing to follow up on leads in their investigation of the case, and he comes out with expletive after expletive, and all I could think of was how stupid Gere looked and sounded, unable to articulate a thought without the crutch of saying fuck and fucking in almost every sentence. The word fuck has become the word of choice by people who lack sufficient vocabulary to voice their outrage in an articulate manner. It is built into almost every movie script to the point of obnoxiousness, and after a while it is a little bit like breathing toxic fumes. Id like to see actors rebel against the use of a word that makes them look utterly stupid on the screen, no better than the vile dregs of society who punctuate every sentence with the f word as a preface to everything that comes out of their mouths. Disjointed and convoluted sentence structures: every WHICH way but loose, or sentences that look like old-fashioned pretzels If you go up the scale of homeless people, which I found this report on in Time magazine, you will see that rather than If you go up the scale of homeless people, based on a report (which) I found in Time magazine, you will see Or just make it easier on yourself by eliminating the much over used pronoun which: According to a report I found in Time magazine, if you go up the scale of homeless people, you will find that And quoting from Websters on the use of which: 3 -- used as a function word to introduce a relative clause; used in any grammatical relation except that of a possessive; used especially in reference to animals, inanimate objects, groups, or ideas -- used freely in reference to persons as recently as the 17th century , and still occasionally so used but usually with some implication of emphasis on the function or role of the person rather than on the person as such -- used by speakers on all educational levels and by many reputable writers, though disapproved by some grammarians, in reference to an idea expressed by a word or group of words that is not necessarily a noun or noun phrase b : at, in, or to what situation, position, direction, circumstances, or respect But Americans, even educated ones, those with degrees in law, medicine, you name it, seem to have a great affinity for saying This is where were at, just as they love to say: This is what its all about. Talk about an overused phrase! And exactly what does it mean when you say: This is what its all about? Will somebody explain that to me? Graduate from The correct grammar is to graduate from a place. Paul graduated from Harvard is the correct form. But it is so common to hear people say, He graduated high school. Why is this wrong? Because if you graduate something you are using the transitive voice of the verb, meaning that the subject is then producing an action upon the object, such as in, Harvard graduated 300 students last year, meaning that Harvard awarded 300 diplomas. Now, can a student graduate college or high school? No. Because it was not the student who conferred the degree, and besides you cant confer a degree upon an institution. So, once again, the correct grammar is to graduate from a place. Mary graduated from Boston College last year. Again, it is mental laziness or else ignorance of English grammar that causes an individual to eliminate the preposition from in this instance. To coin a clich, I wish I had a dime for every time a person uses the preposition at at the end of a sentence and drops the preposition from after the verb graduate when indicating where a person received his degree. Why is that people, including people with college degrees, feel the need to say, This is where Im at when what they mean to say is This is where I am at this point in my life or simply, This is where I am? We are not at unless there is an object following the preposition: We were at the races. The indefinite articles a and an Another faux pas commonly seen or heard is the use of the improper indefinite article (an) before the noun history and its adjectival form: historical. I have even seen a very accomplished writer make this mistake in an online essay in which she wrote the following: Leave it to Dad to come up with an historical reference. She should have written: a historical reference. In her best-selling novel, The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova writes on page 19: Mine happens to be an historians [perspective], in reference to peoples superstitions. And on page 70: an historians passion Here is the rule for the use of the indefinite article, in case anyone is uncertain: Use a with nouns starting with a consonant and an with nouns starting with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Thus, a house, a hotel, a harbor, an apple, an orange. But use an before a mute h as in: an hour, an honor. However, the h in history and historical is not mute and thus the indefinite article a is used. Also, use a before u and eu when they sound like you: a European, a university, a unit. To reiterate: a historical document; a history professor; a historic moment. At least, George Bush, for all the flak he takes for his grammar, gets that one right in his interviews. To return to or to return back to, that is the question: Well, the answer is to return to something, not return back to since the act of returning means going back to something. Lets return to the subject at hand. Lets go back to the subject at hand. Anything more is a redundancy, but some people seem to rely on redundancies because they feel that the correct word usage is not of itself sufficient. Time and again I hear educated people interviewed on television using return back to. Are they confusing it with give back? When we returned to the subject at hand I gave the notes backs to her. I returned home. I returned the package to the store. We are returning to the previous economic model. So, stop the redundancies already. Return to suffices. Adding words to the already clear meaning of something does not make it correct. Evacuate or Evacuate out, that is the question: The last time I looked, people are evacuated from a location or simply evacuated, yet on CNN news on 12/02/05 at 1:20 p.m. the news anchor, speaking about the bomb threat that was phoned in that morning, saying Connecticut courthouses had been targeted, reported that: People have been evacuated out. To be clear on this, here is what the Oxford Dictionary says about it: evacuate verb 1 remove from a place of danger to a safer place. 2 leave (a dangerous place). Apparently, there is some underlying need to add words where none are required. Its as if people dont believe that a single word in certain cases suffices. People love to tack on an extra word just in case someone doesnt understate the original meaning. CHAPTER FIVE Speech Patterns If you think we are not judged by our speech patterns, think again. Its not what goes into our mouths, but what comes out of them that sends a signal to the listener that one either cares about how one sounds or simply doesnt give a hoot. At the risk of being politically incorrect and stepping on someones feelings or damaging him for life, this must be said: Athletes who mumble but make millions of dollars a year seem more interested in fur coats, Hummers, doo rags, dread locks, and gaudy jewelry than in spending a little bit of their money for a speech coach to help them break the cycle of inferior speech patterns and get some training in how to articulate an intelligent sentence. But sports commentators insist on interviewing them all the time even though some of them can barely be understood. LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers said on Oprah that hes not interested in going to college. But he ought to be interested in getting himself a speech coach, at least. Its downright sad listening to some of these star athletes. They are an embarrassment to themselves and dont even realize it. Money does not buy class; that much is obvious. You would think that some of these athletes would be too embarrassed to stand in front of a camera and give an interview, but of course in America, there is no sense of shame. Look at Bill Clinton. Kobe Bryant. Rafael Palmeiro. Bernie Ebbers. Dennis Kozlowski. Scott Sullivan. Not to mention certain members of the U.S. Congress who stash cash in their freezers or rent out their Capitol Hill basement apartments to male prostitutes or take tickets to ring-side boxing matches in Las Vegas, or fail to show up at a state funeral for a former president of the United States because they had other pressing matters to attend to, such as paying visits to left-wing anti-American heads of states in Latin America or staying home to watch another meaningless college bowl game (was it the Betty Crocker Bowl? I cant remember), or take corporate sponsored fact-finding missions to Maui or Luxembourg and who, in some cases, bring along their families for good measure. But getting back to the subject of poor speech patterns and convoluted sentences, this is not confined to athletes. The spontaneous interviews conducted by reporters with the so-called man in the street reveal the depth of deficiency in the use of English language. Who places importance on language anymore? In the age of computers and X-boxes and YouTube and MySpace, is there any hope? Athlete or athelete? Speaking of sports and sports broadcasters, I wish Jim Palmer, whom I always admired as a pitcher and admire as a color analyst on his Baltimore Oriole television broadcasts, would learn that the noun athlete is pronounced athleet not ath-e-lete since there is no e after the ath in the spelling, and that a player is athletic and not atheletic. Stop adding the e where there is no e in the spelling. Carry on, Jim. The verb to go: go, went, gone Another common lapse is the confusion over the past perfect and future perfect of the verb to go. Boomer Esaison, former quarterback for the University of Maryland (and I assume a graduate, and former quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals), broadcasting the Army-Navy game on December 3, 2005, insisted on saying of the decision of Armys coach not go for it on 4th and inches: If it had been me, I would have went for it. And for good measure, he repeated this faux pas a few minutes later. Just for the edification of Boomer and a host of others who dont know that the past participle of go is gone. So here is the sequence: I go, I went, I have gone, I had gone, I would have gone. In other words: Present, Past, Present Perfect, Past Perfect, Future Perfect. What do our graduates take away from their high school and collegiate English classes? Very little it seems. In general, Americans detest foreign languages, but they dont seem to have much respect for their own language when it comes right down to it. Come on, Boomer, et al. You are on national television. Use the correct form of the verb. This is not higher mathematics. This is not physics. Stop embarrassing yourselves. And I dont mean to belittle Boomer. He does a lot of good charitable work. I commend him for the good work he does in an effort to help others. It would just be nice to hear our luminaries use correct English. Millions are listening. Lets promote good English. For he (Huh?) Oh, for goodness sake, please! Once more, and I am hearing this more and more, from sports broadcasters to everyday people, to even one television reporter who shall remain nameless: They did it for he and Mary. Please! He is the subject of a verb, not the object of a preposition. They did it for him and Mary. (Subj. pronoun) (object of a preposition) They did it for he would be the same as saying they did for she, or for we, or for they. Lets get real! Dont our schools teach grammar anymore or is that another politically incorrect thing to do: insisting on proper grammar? The last thing we want to do in education is to correct anyone and get his feelings hurt. After all, it could ruin his psyche for life. Better to let him go through his adolescent years in ignorant bliss, so long as he has a happy outlook on life. One of my colleagues at another university adopted this attitude toward disagreeable students who didnt want to be told anything: I let them squeeze by and life takes care of the rest. Once more folks, and with feeling: Subject Pronouns Object Pronouns (of verbs and prepositions) I me you you he him she her we us you (pl.) you (pl.) (In both cases, not you guys.) they them To make the situation more depressing are the grammatical errors that pop up repeatedly in published works of fictions, by writers who supposedly have a love of language, but perhaps not of grammar. Word Invention How we love to invent words that dont exist! And why? Laziness, people, pure and simple. Too lazy to form a complete sentence. An announcer for the U.S. Open said of a player (August 31, 2006) and his coach, that this particular coach has been impactful on the players career. Impactful? Even my spell check puts a red line under that one. Impactful? Why? Because the announcer was too lazy to form a complete sentence: This coach has had a real impact on the players career. Now, how hard is that? How many seconds did it take to make oneself sound literate? And while adding theize suffix to nouns to form a verb in many cases is legitimate, too often it almost seems to be an obsession. Although I did learn a new one that really exists in Websters: synopsize. I had never heard it before until an interviewer on NPR radio used it in an interview with an author. The same as summarize, I suppose. I always thought, however, that one made or offered a synopsis of something. But now I know that we can synopsize, although I dont like the word. Let us hope we never hear conclusivized for he drew the conclusion that or he concluded that, but give it time, somebody will come up with it. Language as far as I know, and according to Websters and every other dictionary, is a noun, but Oprah Winfrey, and I really hate to bring this up because she really does so many good things in this world, has now turned it into a verb in the form of a present participle. On her February 16, 2007 show, she said how she liked the languaging of something so much, and then repeated it. I think she meant to say phrasing. Alright vs. all right Personally, I prefer all right, but here is what Websters says on the subject: alright One entry found for alright. Main Entry: alright Pronunciation: (")ol-'rIt, 'ol-" Function: adverb or adjective : ALL RIGHT The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing . Agreement of subject and possessive and reflexive pronouns Forget about everyday speech, or television and movie scripts (I give up where they are concerned), but what about our novelists who cant seem to bring themselves to use the above-mentioned agreement for fear of being politically incorrect, whereby the impersonal he seems to have been cast out for no apparent reason. The British novelist Zadie Smith in her latest novel, On Beauty, writes on page 39: and someone beside her with their face in their hands Well, the last time I looked, someone is a singular subject, which would require the writer to say, with her face in her hands or with his face in his hands, depending on who it was who was beside her. Moreover, their face is wrong. The possessive their, when speaking of an object that is not a collective noun would require this: their faces, unless the entire group had one face, which I assume it wouldnt, whereas, you could speak of their house, of course, one object belonging to a group. Then, again on page 227, Ms. Smith writes, Nobody can cast themselves out. Nobody, like someone, or somebody is a singular subject, requiring a singular reflexive pronoun: Nobody can cast himself out. Or, if you prefer, Nobody can cast herself out, if one is so averse to using the masculine form of the reflexive pronoun. Then again, to avoid the entire issue, you could write: People/Individuals/Persons/Human beings cannot cast themselves out. But that doesnt have the same impact as, Nobody can cast himself out. Heres one from a book reviewer: No aspiring author who is now faced with the task of promoting and marketing their book can afford to be without their own personal reference copy of Author 101. I only see a singular subject No aspiring writer, which then requires the generic singular possessive his in both cases. But we are seemingly so obsessed with PC that we evidently cant bring ourselves to use the corresponding singular possessive pronoun. Now, if the reviewer wanted to avoid the semblance of being politically incorrect, he (and not knowing the gender of the reviewer, I will avoid the already too mundane and tiresome he/she) could have written: Aspiring writers who are now faced with the task of promoting and marketing their books cannot afford to be without their own personal reference copies of Author 101. In her novel, Bel Canto, Ann Patchett says on page 292: Wasnt this exactly what love was? To want what was best for someone, to help them along Once again, someone, a singular pronoun, is transformed into a plural object pronoun. What is so wrong with sticking to the grammatically correct generic object pronoun him? Maybe we need to come up with a neuter object pronoun, so that no one is offended. Nani Power, an otherwise wonderful writer, who really knows how to capture different voices, places the following line in the mouth of Mr. Feinstein, the president of the Royale Hotel, in The Sea of Tears (a very entertaining and poignant novel, by the way) in response to a query from an employee: Of course, you see each manager has their jurisdiction. Well, here we go again! And, of course, at the end, the author acknowledges all the people who helped her along the way, mostly her agent and the person who worked on the editing. How do these things get by an agent and a person who does manuscript editing? Even if the words come from one of the books characters, and we assume an educated one, why cant the writer put proper grammar in his mouth? Are we so offended by the use of his as a generic reference? In the year 2006, as an advanced civilization, who doesnt know that a manager or a doctor or physicist or an engineer can just as likely be a woman? We are not the Taliban. Why such a suffocating need for political correctness to the point of the ridiculous? That nasty little preposition for What is it about the preposition for that makes many individuals believe it must come at the end of a sentence in order to express the length of time for something to take place? In exempla: How long does the roast have to cook for? How long will they be here for? How long will he be president for? In the film Lost In Translation, Scarlett Johannson runs into Bill Murray on her way from the hotel pool and asks him, How long are you staying for? When did How long are you staying or How long will you be staying become inadequate? People, please! Just drop the silliness of for in asking the question, How long..? And that other little bit of nasty business, those dangling relative pronouns that and which Listen up, people, high school students, teachers, talk show hosts, congressmen and senators, et al: That and which are relative pronouns that serve as connectors or bridges between one idea and another: Tommy said that he would be here at eight. Joan has the right idea, which is a very good thing for us. But they do not serve as a bridge between two disjointed statements. In exempla: Harry didnt arrive on time, which he promised to be here at nine. This should be rephrased: Harry promised to be here at nine, but he came late. Or: Harry didnt arrive on time, and he had promised to be here by nine. The sentence in bold is a common mistake because, for the most part, people are too lazy to engage in proper phrasing, so they tack on which in a vain effort to connect two ideas that have not been properly phrased. Another example of such disconnect is this: They tried so hard to be grown up, which they turned out looking ridiculous. This should be rephrased: They tried so hard to be grown up, but ended up looking ridiculous. Or: They tried so hard to be grown up, and ended up looking ridiculous. But many speakers, in a rush to get their ideas across, resort to the improper use of which in an effort to show the relationship between two ideas when they should be thinking about proper phrasing. Some of the most convoluted statements ever heard come from congressional hearings, where senators and congressmen love the sound of their own voices so much that they end up in a web of their own weaving. The reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, themselves Nothing causes more confusion for speakers than the proper use of the self pronouns. From the American Heritage Dictionary, we get this clarification: PRONOUN: 1. That one identical with me. a. Used reflexively as the direct or indirect object of a verb or as the object of a preposition: I bought myself a new car. b. Used for emphasis: I myself was certain of the facts. c. Used in an absolute construction: In office myself, I helped her get a job. 2. My normal or healthy condition or state: I'm feeling myself again. USAGE NOTE: The self-pronouns, such as myself, yourselves, and herself, are sometimes used as emphatic substitutes for personal pronouns, as in Like yourself, I have no apologies to make. The practice is particularly common in compound phrases: Ms. Evans or yourself will have to pick them up at the airport. Although these usages have been common in the writing of reputable authors for several centuries, they may sound overwrought. A large majority of the Usage Panel disapproves of the use of self-pronouns when they do not refer to the subject of the sentence. Seventy-three percent reject the sentence He was an enthusiastic fisherman like myself. Sixty-seven percent object to The letters were written entirely by myself. The Panel is even less tolerant of compound usages. Eighty-eight percent find this sentence unacceptable: The boss asked John and myself to give a brief presentation. It should be: The boss asked John and me In view of this, was Secretary of State Rice correct in saying that [Mr. .] has the full confidence of President Bush and of myself, as she did in her address concerning the crisis in Darfur and the presidents appointment of a particular individual to oversee the humanitarian efforts there? I am not so sure. Perhaps, some rephrasing is in order: [Mr. ] has my full confidence and that of President Bush. Or, [Mr. ] has President Bushs full confidence and mine as well. Even someone as eloquent as Robert Redford in phrasing his sentences, said the following at a rally in Los Angeles for Prop. 87: This is the worst air in the nation by EPA standards. The problem is that the oil companies want to maintain the status quo for them because its good for their business. If he is talking about the oil companies and their contentment with the status quo as redounding to their own benefit, shouldnt he have said for themselves? I think so. Because who does them refer to? The oil companies themselves or some other entity? As a matter of clarity and correct usage, he should have said for themselves? SPELLING Along with my angst over the shortcomings of Americans in their use of the English language, comes my angst over Americans general failure with spelling. It seems that our high school English classes have no requirement for spelling, as did my freshmen English class at the University of Delaware in 1959. Here are a few examples of college-bound juniors and seniors from my wifes third-and fourth-year Spanish classes in Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the nations highest achieving districts for academics: atach for attack, nervise for nervous, egar for eager, and fule for fuel. This from a segment of our college-bound juniors and seniors. This from a segment of our future electorate. But they all know how to spell the f- words, they all know how to im on their cell phones. What happens to these people in college and in the work place? Have all the teachers thrown their hands up in the air and abdicated to the lowest common denominator? What have we come to? A nation of I-pod and video-game addicts who, in addition to not giving a fig about the English language, dont even give a fig about spelling? That is a sweeping indictment and, of course, not all fall under that umbrella, but a vast majority do, unfortunately. Our schools are in the business of stroking so that everybody can feel good about himself. What happens to these same students in freshman English? Or is it even required anymore? What happens to them when they need to write a memo to their corporate boss? Oh, I know. They all depend on spell-check. Great! So, what happens when they have to handwrite a memo without the benefit of spell-check? Will they use a dictionary? My own experience with students is that they hate to use dictionaries. Why? Too much trouble! That is their stock answer. Everything is too much trouble! Everything is a bother. Leave us alone! they cry. Let us put our heads down on our desks and sleep through class. Let us listen to our I-pods while our teacher is explaining the lesson. I see kids in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa who are hungry for education, sitting at rudimentary desks, paying attention to their teachers, and smiling because they are learning something. But our students are bored, tired, and lazy. And theyre all going to college, believing that Spain is in Latin America and that Venezuela is spelled Venezola. College bound! Is this madness or what? Isnt enough that we now have the phenomenon of seeing the noun truthfulness being converted into an acceptable variance as truthiness? Truthiness? Please, people, please, lets keep some semblance of standards. Or might I be wrong? Maybe there are no standards. That way, nobodys feelings get hurt. Advertising doesnt help the situation either with things like nite for night. I wonder if kids know the difference between night and knight when they see it. The latest gimmick in spoon-feeding high-school students is called Blackboard: a 24/7 on-line listing of each teachers daily and weekly assignments. It isnt enough that the teacher writes the assignments on the classroom blackboard. Or provides handouts. Oh, no! Teachers must go beyond the normal. And guess what? The kids still dont check the on-line postings. Oh, I forgot. Another stock answer. Wheres your homework, Johnny? Oh, I forgot. When I was in school, who knew about computers much less Blackboard? We copied the assignment from the blackboard. We wrote it in our notebooks. And we turned in our assignments. Todays grade-grubbers, along with their grade-grubbing parents, want extra credit for showing up, for turning in an assignment, for having a pulse. They grovel. They complain. They cheat. They lie. (Well, why not? Havent they learned their lessons from certain of our Congressmen and star athletes, and parents who make excuses for them instead of calling them to account to be responsible?) They accuse. They make excuse after excuse. They run to their counselors, sniveling: My teacher doesnt like me. The result: grade inflation: A B isnt a B anymore; its a C+ marked up to a B because of extra credit. And if they are getting a D, they dont ask the teacher, What can I do to improve my grade? No. They ask, How can I change my grade? Knowledge of the subject, why thats completely out of the question. Even for their parents. The grade is all that matters. Not mastery of the subject. Not knowledge. How boring! No wonder foreign students laugh at American students. But nobody wants to say the emperor has no clothes. No. Instead, the curriculum specialists who never have to teach a class, much less spend a minute in a classroom, keep coming up with gimmicks that they foist onto the teachers in the vain hope that it will be the next magic bullet to raise student achievement. It is time that we tell the school boards and these curriculum specialists that there is no magic bullet. And if their latest gimmick is a magic bullet, why dont they go into the classroom and perform it themselves as a demonstration class to teachers before it is implemented? It must be fabulous to be a backseat driver all the time and tell those on the frontlines what must be done. What a great way to earn a living! Is this country great or what! Add to that, three full-time psychologists on hand at some schools in case of a crisis but who can rarely be found in their offices. I wonder how many full-time psychologists are on hand at the schools in Africa or Central America or Afghanistan? Can there be learning where there is no discipline? Where there is no dress code? Where guys come in shorts in warm weather and sit in class with their legs spread to the point that their privates are hanging out, where girls come dressed like Britney Spears, with everything exposed, ample cleavage, hip-hugger jeans that provide a birds-eye view of the crack between their buttocks and the top line of their pubic hair, where flip-flops are the ubiquitous footwear (even in freezing weather, even if its raining) that slap irritatingly against the floors in the hallways and classrooms, worn even by college girls attending a White House ceremony and not understanding what is wrong with the way they came dressed. Could care less or couldnt care less? The correct phrase is couldnt care less, for if one could care less, one is still caring, whereas the intent of the phrase is to show that one could not care less. Land of the giant squid.anti-linguistic country.despises foreign languages.why study English? one h.s. student asks. What does American culture value? David Eggers, on his novel What Is The What? The protagonist Nov. 28, 2006. The Washington Post.Style He was like. This is how our artists speak. Reliance on this inane crutch. Prominent black athletes who cannot break themselves of the habit of saying We was, even a gentleman like Emmitt Smith on Dancing With The Stars in an interview. Thankfully, this is a small minority, but it is discouraging that some black athletes do not break this habit of inferior use of the languageOtherwise, his use of language is quite good, better than most black athletes and he has excellent diction. All the emphasis is on getting grades, not knowledge. I did all I could because you wanted to succeed. Pronunciations and mispronunciations Genuine: Is it genuwin or genuwine? For the record, here is what Websters has this to say about it: usage The objection which some commentators make to the pronunciation \'jen-y&-"wIn\ is perhaps occasioned by the fact that it is more frequent among those with less schooling. However, this variant is heard in the speech of cultured or highly educated speakers sufficiently frequently for it to be recognized as a widespread pronunciation at all social levels. This variant was recorded as early as 1890 and appears to be simply a long-standing spelling pronunciation. Nonetheless, I still prefer the genuwin pronunciation to the genuwine pronunciation, for the latter has always been the habitual province of the less educated, particularly sideshow barkers and snake oil salesmen. Do we always have to bow to the lowest common denominator in language just because it has found its way into common usage? All in all, I rarely hear educated people pronounce it genuwine, so it is not common usage among the educated. Deleterious: This is pronounced as it reads, not delitrious as pronounced by one U.S. senator in an interview, I forget who and where, but the mangled pronunciation took place on our airwaves on or around 2/12/07 in a discussion of the Iraq war and a pending congressional resolution. HEY, YOU GUYS/M.B. 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Foreign Languages & LiteraturesGary MacDonaldNEdkm!> >> >w>~>>> BBCDDDDOE1=U[!!''));<E<F<>>"?%?????J@M@AABBBBBBCDDOE::::::::::::::::::Michael MillerWMacintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Documents:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of HEY YOU GUMichael Miller:Macintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Desktop:Submissions:HEY YOU GUYSMichael MillerJMacintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Documents:Microsoft User Data:Word Work File A_3Michael MillerMMacintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Documents:Microsoft User Data:Word Work File A_1694Michael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael MillerXMiguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Documents:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of HEY YOU GUMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleDOE@DDpDD35$F$`a$G5CJPJmH HDD1DrDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD2E3ELEMENE0 @10@0@0O@0@1@0 @0@1z@0&@1*@09@1 C@0NK@0P@1T@00r@1 x@0@0@0.@1@10@0,@0.@GTimes New Roman5Symbol3 ArialCѬLucida Grande3Times"1hqs^ 8 x]/  ?0dEX=%@HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE& %Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesMichael Miller==>>"???H@BBBCCD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *G v x 4 "#####&&&&&&&'&(&&"'l'( ))*+',),*,Y,Z,-14K799%9&9I;J;;;<<=====>>"???H@BBBCCDDD01 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 01 0*NrZ% %;& ")2EJ^Jr~vݧɬv %J(X  /g  [[UnknownMichael Miller%Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesGary MacDonaldDdkm!> >> >w>~>>> BBDD )1=U[!!''));<E<F<>>"?%?????J@M@AABBBBBBDD::::::::::::::::::Michael MillerJMacintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Documents:Microsoft User Data:Word Work File A_3Michael MillerMMacintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Documents:Microsoft User Data:Word Work File A_1694Michael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael MillerXMiguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Documents:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of HEY YOU GUMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller/Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GuysDD@F$^`a$G5B*CJPJmH phG5B*CJPJmH phGB*CJPJmH phG5CJPJmH GB*CJPJmH phG5CJPJmH |DDDqDrDDDD0 @10$ @10.@1@10@0,@0.@1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 01 0*NrZ% %;&")2EJ^Jr~vݧɬv %J(X& /g  [[UnknownMichael Miller%Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesGary MacDonaldDdkm!> >> >w>~>>> BBDDDD1=U[!!''));<E<F<>>"?%?????J@M@AABBBBBBCDD::::::::::::::::::Michael Miller:Macintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Desktop:Submissions:HEY YOU GUYSMichael MillerJMacintosh HD:Users:Miguel:DocumGTimes New Roman5Symbol3 ArialCѬLucida Grande3Times"1hqs` 8 w]/  ?0dDX= %@HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE& %Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesMichael Millerents:Microsoft User Data:Word Work File A_3Michael MillerMMacintosh HD:Users:Miguel:Documents:Microsoft User Data:Word Work File A_1694Michael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Deskt  ()*,-456789:;< DocumentSummaryInformation8HCompObjX0TableJsampleMichael MillerXMiguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Documents:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of HEY YOU GUMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleDOE@DDpDD35$F$`a$G5CJPJmH HDD1DrDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD2E3ELEMENE0 @10@0@0O@0@1@0 @0@1z@0&@1*@09@1 C@0NK@0P@1T@00r@1 x@0@0@0.@1@10@0,@0.@GTimes New Roman5Symbol3 ArialCѬLucida Grande3Times"1hqs^ 8 x]/  ?0dEX=%@HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE& %Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesMichael Miller i4@4NormalCJOJPJQJmH B@B Heading 1$@&B*CJOJQJphDD Heading 2$@&`5CJO FMicrosoft Word DocumentNB6WWord.Document.8 ՜.+,0 hp  'Gallaudet University IwD HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE Title Oh+'0  $0 L X dpx'HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE.EY,&Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesofeptNormaloMichael Millera222Microsoft Word 10.1@@@ց@  8&~VYآHEY9 & 0JmH5CJOJQJ@ [jbjbqqqqqqqqDl4'J+J+J+J+J+,t:::8&;Tz;4F.==*=*=*=*=*=*=DDDDDDD,0G PID(J+*=*=*=*=*=Dv>J+J+*=*=r<v>v>v>*=XJ+*=J+*=Dv>^+^+^J+J+J+J+*=Dv>"v>DJ+J+D6<<eU>4`:=DDFFDJv>JDv> HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE THE WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Michael B. Miller, Ph.D. Translator of Spanish and Latin American fiction and nonfiction Professor of Spanish and Latin American literatures (Retired) CHAPTER ONE Hey, you guys, I was like The Inarticulate American Katie Couric, the 15 million-dollar-a-year gal, CNNs Wolf Blitzer, Hollywood and television stars, Pentagon officials, high school and college students, et al. YOU ARE KILLING US with your grammatical mistakes! Killing us! Killing our language! And does anybody give a damn? At this time in the history of our nation, I am convinced that we are presiding over a population that has little regard for correct use of the English language much less acquisition of the skill in articulating a coherent thought. The airwaves and everyday conversation are replete with mistakes and jumbled phraop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael MillerXMiguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Documents:Microsoft User Data:AutoRecovery save of HEY YOU GUMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleMichael Miller8Miguel II:Users:mbmiller63:Desktop:HEY YOU GUYS / sampleDD@DDpDDF$^`a$G5B*CJPJmH phG5B*CJPJmH phGB*CJPJmH phG5CJPJmH GB*CJPJmH phG5CJPJmH dDDDqDrDDDD0 @10.@1@1"0@0,@0.@GTimes New Roman5Symbol3 ArialCѬLucida Grande3Times"0hqs_ 8 w]/  ?#0dDX=D%@HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE& %Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesMichael Miller FMicrosoft Word DocumentNB6WWord.Document.8 ՜.+,0 hp  'Gallaudet University IwD HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE Title Oh+'0  $0 L X dpx'HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE.EY,&Dept. Foreign Languages & LiteraturesofeptNormaloMichael Millera221Microsoft Word 10.1@@ց@  8million-dollar-a-year gal, CNNs Wolf Blitzer, Hollywood and tel@ [jbjbqqqqqqqDlt8LZ .TVVVVVV, ! XT*^^T8@@<R>Z 4@@@""@  HEY, YOU GUYS, I WAS LIKE THE WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Michael B. Miller, Ph.D. Translator of Spanish and Latin American fiction and nonfiction Professor of Spanish and Latin American literatures (Retired) CHAPTER ONE Hey, you guys, I was like The Inarticulate American Katie Couric, the 15 million-dollar-a-year gal, CNNs Wolf Blitzer, Hollywood and television stars, Pentagon officials, high school and college students, et al. YOU ARE KILLING US with your grammatical mistakes! Killing us! Killing our language! And does anybody give a damn? At this time in the history of our nation, I am convinced that we are presiding over a population that has little regard for correct use of the English language much less acquisition of the skill in articulating a coherent thought. The airwaves and everyday conversation are replete with mistakes and jumbled phrases. Larry King is one of the worst offenders. As for articulation, regrettably we hear certain phrases ad nauseum, YOU GUYS being one of the most ubiquitous and irritating of them. Ive heard this used even by professional people when addressing colleagues or other professionals, be it doctor, lawyer, rabbi or clergy, whether it is a group of males or females, or a combination of the two. One of the chief offenders is Katie Couric. She loves this one. It seems as if she does not know any other form of proper address when speaking to two or more people. But she is only one of a larger group of television talk show hosts, pseudo-intellectual Hollywood types, teen-age waiters and waitresses, and even from our own children. I always addressed my parents as Mom and Dad, or by the understood plurality of you when addressing both of them at the same time. Even the editor of the prestigious Christian Science Monitor, at an annual meeting, addressed a panel of male and female reporters as GUYS. All right, guys, Ill turn it over to you now. What are we to do when the editor of an internationally recognized newspaper, with seven Pulitzer Prizes to its credit, addresses a group of adult men and women as guys? I give up. Guys, Guys, Guys.how did this inane form of addressing people creep into our language? It probably originated from the French, where Guy (pronounced Ghee) is a popular male name. Maybe an American soldier returned and said I knew a Guy Vittron in Paris, pronouncing it as guy ra K}~ "CamghiL%%%%`%D(E(F(G(H(((-....//114699#9$9=AChDFJ$a$`%;*;+;7;>;L;P;`;d;e;IIII!I#I3I4IhIiIQQQQS,SOSbS:TQT]UUUQVXVYYY [[[s[t[z[{[}[~[[[&(  $&þٸéOJQJ0JmH0J j0JU 5OJQJ B*ph 5B*ph56B*CJOJQJphB*CJOJQJph5B*CJOJQJph56B*CJOJQJph>JNQQQQdReRfRgR>S?S|S}SSSS\U]UUUUUUUQVRV(X$a$$a$(X)XYYY [[[[[[[( &$a$`$a$$a$ [[[[[[ses. Larry King is one of the worst offenders. As for articulation, regrettably we hear certain phrases ad nauseum, YOU GUYS being one of the most ubiquitous and irritating of them. Ive heard this used even by professional people when addressing colleagues or other professionals, be it doctor, lawyer, rabbi or clergy, whether it is a group of males or females, or a combination of the two. One of the chief offenders is Katie Couric. She loves this one. It seems as if she does not know any other form of proper address when speaking to two or more people. But she is only one of a larger group of television talk show hosts, pseudo-intellectual Hollywood types, teen-age waiters and waitresses, and even from our own children. I always addressed my parents as Mom and Dad, or by the understood plurality of you when addressing both of them at the same time. Even the editor of the prestigious Christian Science Monitor, at an annual meeting, addressed a panel of male and female reporters as GUYS. All right, guys, Ill turn it over to you now. What are we to do when the editor of an internationally recognized newspaper, with seven Pulitzer Prizes to its credit, addresses a group of adult men and women as guys? I give up. Guys, Guys, Guys.how did this inane form of addressing people creep into our language? It probably originated from the French, where Guy (pronounced Ghee) is a popular male name. Maybe an American soldier returned and said I knew a Guy Vittron in Paris, pronouncing it as guy ra K}~ "CamghiL%%%%`%D(E(F(G(H(((-....//114699#9$9=AChDFJ$a$`%;*;+;7;>;L;P;`;d;e;IIII!I#I3I4IhIiIQQQQS,SOSbS:TQT]UUUQVXVYYY [[[s[t[z[{[}[~[[[&(  $&þٸéOJQJ0JmH0J j0JU 5OJQJ B*ph 5B*ph56B*CJOJQJphB*CJOJQJph5B*CJOJQJph56B*CJOJQJph> 0/ =!"#$%25 25 \24 23 ple?9  0/ =!"#$%9 JNQQQQdReRfRgR>S?S|S}SSSS\U]UUUUUUUQVRV(X$a$$a$(X)XYYY [[[[[[[( & $a$`$a$$a$ [[[[[[ 0/ =!"#$%25 25 \24 23 ple?9  0/ =!"#$%9