IT WAS 9:30 at night. I was tired; my students were tired; we’d been writing and talking about writing for almost four hours; it was time to start wrapping up so we could all go home to bed. “One last thing,” I said. “Looking at the writing you did tonight, I noticed some confusion about when to use ‘me’ and when to use ‘I.’ ” Suddenly everybody in the room was awake. More than awake: they were excited. Help, they said, please, please explain. They were graduate students, but no one had ever taught them basic grammar.
Now we come to a fork in the op-ed writer’s road. This column could head off in the direction of deploring and lamenting the lack of grammar instruction in our schools and fearing that the English language is being corrupted, impoverished, and lost. For the record: Yes. I deplore, lament, and fear.
Comments
Joan's columns are always a joy to read, and this is a subject that often drives me crazy. While correct grammar is often lost on people, I find that it is even more present, when the language is spoken. And many incorrect grammatical phrases are so common, it is generally accepted by society. Example: Ending a sentence with a preposition: "Here's where we're at." I here so many people speaking this way, that it drives me crazy, and I am tempted to offer a polite correction. But that goes down the path of proper manners.........
"That's the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put." - Winston Churchill
Grammarians disagree about when it is acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition, but clearly there are times when it's OK to do so. You may want to read this: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ending-prepositions.aspx
The example you gave ("Here's where we're at.") is mentioned in the article.
Ending a sentence with a preposition is not against English grammar rules. While there are plenty of maddening grammatical errors, this mythical error need not drive you crazy any longer.
I here? Joking right?
Between you and I, Joan, you write real good, especially never using a preposition to end a sentence with
Ha! I picked up on that too and had a good chuckle. I try to be a grammer wonk and I make no apologies for it. That said, I also make those types of simple errors that spellcheck doesn't see. I'll give Richmond a "pass" on that one just because it made me laugh.
Great job, sent this along to my daughter, a press secretary. How about "it's" and "its" next week?
If we're going to do contractions and possessives, let's not ignore you're and your and they're and their (and sometimes even there).
I'd like to see the networks throw a yellow flag and fine those highly compensated sports announcers who regularly confuse the subjective and objective cases. Students learn from examples in their lives, in person and on the air. Wouldn't we have fun seeing "$500 FINE" flashing on the screen each time an announcer made this type of mistake? The finer distinctions might just sink in.
unfortunately, they're jocks, and they are expected to talk like their audience.
I can handle the sportcaseters, because I rarely listen to them. What about the actual newcasters, those that are supposed to be journalists. The hair on the back of my nect rises everytime one of them says: "They're gonna throw him in jail." Or "Thay are failin to contain the spill."
Please don't get me started on slang. Apparently all monetary fines are now in "bucks' or "smackeroos"!
The misuse of "me" and "I" is extremely irritating, and I hope others see this and correct themselves.
I've heard media people use the wrong form on TV and on radio, as well as politicians (who lose a little of my support with each utterance), and I've seen it in newspapers and magazines, so perhaps this article should be sent to editors and press people everywhere.
I'll save the link for future reference.
you can also add the misuse of 'myself'...
'She came to the movies with Frank and myself'. Blech !
The "I" and "me" issue has always been easy for me to figure out, but not "to lie" or "to lay." I almost had it, but then you lost me at "infinitive form of the verb"....:-)
The infinitive form of the verb: to lie.
Joan fears we will lose the English language. It seems to me we lost that long ago. We have American English which is a far cry from English. As the culture diversifies we will probably lose even more of it. Technology will wipe out large sections and the language will continue to be reduced and refined as as te need for a more rapid verbal and written response becomes the norm. I suppose or me suppose that while grammar is important to many of us the future will hold that what matters is "does the point come across? Are we communicating". I'm not necessarily disagreewing with her postion I just wonder how important it will be in the future and if it really matters whether, I lie down or I lay down or I laid down.
Social usage - whether it is knowing which fork to use or which word to use - is often seen as a marker for
good manners or educational attainment. And manners are quite subjective: what does it matter which fork to use as long as it gets the job done ? Well, it matters to people who want to know if you are the sort of person who uses the right fork.
Precisely, jdtew. As language for the masses regresses to grunts, the upper 5% will quietly continue to train their kids to speak proper English so they can be clearly identified as members of the elite. If your ok w/ that jst keep yur head in the sand and injoy the vu.
Joan's column is hardly a model of grammar, nor are the comments posted. As a college writing professor, I taught only two principles: the art of writing is re-writing and say more by saying less. Writing is about the reader, not the writer.
Hang on, let me give Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy a quick text to see if he agrees. (just having fun with you!)
Grammar is an imperative, I believe!
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the misuse of the term 'literally'.
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I would it were not so.
Ah, the memory of diagraming on the blackboard is very nice. I loved that practice. The placing of every word in an orderly composition was so gratifying. Then there was the teacher who added colored chalk to the exercise. Wow! Can you tell that I became a painter?
I HATED diagramming sentences. ...But I learned how to speak and write properly.
Thank you for a nice and easily grasped lesson. I thank my 8th grade teacher, the late Mrs. Ruth McGuirk of Hingham, for patiently drilling us in similar fashion to good effect.
Keep up the good fight. This is important. When language is corrupted, thought is corrupted.
One that drives me nuts it "the reason why," when, of course, it should be "the reason that." To compound the error, many say "the reason why is because" thus compounding the redundancy.
"Now I lay me down to sleep..."
I guess rules change over time.
They do, but not in that case. You can still lay your baby, or yourself, down. But that's a transitive verb (takes a direct object, in this case "me"). Without the object, you just intransitively lie down. Diagramming optional.
From Merriam Webster: "Lay has been used intransitively in the sense of “lie” since the 14th century." I guess it has become a problem for people with too much time on their hands!
Shall we remember that spelling, usage, and style are not the same as grammar? All are important, and related, but not interchangeable.
Although it's far less annoying than the mess made of the language on the Internet (and elsewhere), it irritates me when people respond to someone's pointing out a spelling error by contemptuously referring to the "grammar police."
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Thank you for this article. Clear and accurate communication requires upholding standards. Would so enjoy a "lesson" each week (or day) on front page of Globe...something small but important, including contractions, usage, and various elements of grammar.
Proofreading is important, but a good teacher would have pointed out error and moved on. All of us have something to learn.
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Wonderful column. I find myself shouting at television and radio news anchors for their poor grammar. It's rather sad that what I tune into isn't what they say but how they say it. Please continue the lessons!
This is the type of article for which the Globe should be proud! Keep it up.
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All grammar is social.
Well at least we have three things clear:
1. Musicains are drug/sex addicts
2. sports lovers are "dumber than us"
3. people love to show other people that they fit in with their chosen clique
I sincerely hope every one posting here is 22 or younger, otherwise folks, go strtaight outside and breathe deeply...Enjoy!!
As Tarzan might say: Me like! The author means well, and I suppose these mundane rules were common knowledge as recently as the '70s, when I was a kid. That's part of her point: they're no longer common knowledge. But she and many of those commenting here remind me of the (perhaps apocryphal) editor somewhere, during baseball season, who changed every instance of "flied out" in the sports section to "flew out."
right on smozo. My father taught high school English so I was straightened out every time I spoked wrongly in the 70's.
I'm with JW 100% on her concern and give her a wide berth because it's her career. Just having fun with her & some posters' apparent bias against guitar players a sports lovers (did you guess I'm both).
Love this op-ed! Whether it's a TV or print ad, newspaper or magazine writing (especially headlines), or even a restaurant menu, I find that even simple grammatical errors can make the final product feel unfinished/unpolished/unprofessional. That inattention to detail begins to erode my confidence a little bit, right from the start. Thanks for providing this public service!
One of the (many) reasons for the decline in writing and grammar skills is that we have a generation being raised to believe that "bloggers" are writers, and that "blogging" is writing. Texting is eroding what counts as a sentence, or a thought, let alone a correctly spelled word, or the idea of using decent grammar. Email? Forget it. Good grammar is like a muscle that you have to use and exercise, or it will lose strength, become painful and have serious consequences in the "real world" of resume writing, interviewing, and employment. I once interviewed a fantastic candidate for a job opening. I'd noticed that she had a spelling error on her resume; I overlooked it because her resume and cover letter indicated she was ideal. When I interviewed her, sure enough, she was as good in person as she was on paper (I offered her the job); at the end of the interview, I respectfully pointed out the spelling error. She was very thankful to me for pointing it out, and responded professionally, and with poise. Sometimes, you have to give someone the benefit of the doubt and leave it up to them to prove if doing so was justified.