Grammar Pet Peeves

"There is a satisfactory boniness about grammar which the flesh of sheer vocabulary requires before it can become a vertebrate and walk the earth." -Anthony Burgess

I think I know why I watch T.V. so infrequently these days.

I abhor bad grammar.

The only thing more irritating to me than detecting faulty grammar in someone else's speech or writing is lapsing into grammatical error myself. Grrrrrrr.

I know I've taken some grammatical liberties in the informal writing on this blog. I write in incomplete sentences, start sentences with conjunctions, and cut a bunch of grammatical corners here and there, I'm sure. I can do that, but a journalist for a major periodical or on CNN shouldn't, nor should a head of state, teacher, or any person occupying some kind of leadership role and publicly exercising it.

Almost every time I watch anything on T.V. I find myself wanting to hurl a stuffed animal at the screen and ask, "Did you NOT pay ATTENTION in SCHOOL?"

"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put." -Winston Churchill.

Here are my top ten language pet peeves:

1. People saying "between him and I" or "between you and I" instead of "between him/you and me." UGH. Go get a copy of Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, please, which you should have studied in middle school, and learn to speak your native language correctly - especially if you have a reputation for eloquence, out-of-this-world oratory skills, and great writing (ahem, Mr. President).

2. "Different than." I know this is commonplace and universally accepted, but it grates on my nerves. Something is bigger or smaller than something else, prettier or uglier, older or younger; but something differs FROM something else. Than is used for adjectives delineating quantity, size, or degree; but this is different from that.

3. Failure to agree subject and verb, especially in a neither/nor construction.

WRONG:

• "Neither Maria nor Carlos are here."
  
• "Each of the girls sing well."
  
• "Every actor playing these roles are expected to be different."

YUCK. Just corrected my latest mothers-in-medicine post for this very thing.  Shame!

4. Use of "would have" instead of "had," as in, "I wish he would've taken the trash out last night." UUUUUGGHHHH! Figure out what you want to say - "I wish he HAD taken the trash out last night" or "I wish he WOULD take the trash out some time before the four horsemen of the apocalypse appear."

5. Hearing people ask a patient to "lay down." Lay down what? Their lives? They don't need to do that. They do, however, need to LIE down.

6. Inappropriate possessives and other misplaced apostrophes. It's such a simple matter to see that "it is" can be contracted to it's, and that a dog scratching its hind leg is NOT scratching "it is" hind leg. My attending your birthday party when you're fifty also seems straightforward. I have to wonder, though - is the name of a nearby road "Soldier's Field" or "Soldiers' Field?" I've seen it spelled both ways. Does it belong to the generic soldier who represents all soldiers, or to a group of soldiers? (There's a similar problem with Professors Row at Tufts University.)

7. "Dangling" participles and clauses. I was just watching the opening episode of Season 3 of The Tudors, and I had to cringe when the character of Thomas Cromwell said, "Sir Edward. As the brother of His Majesty's beloved wife, Jane, it is His Majesty's pleasure today to create you Viscount Beecham of Hash in Somerset." Somebody please send me a diagram of THAT sentence. Oh no, wait - you CAN'T, because the anaphor and antecedent don't relate.

8. Misused/incorrect words. Irregardless is not a word. We don't loose our keys or turn prisoners lose; and I have one or two more things to add: we go to school, and we should have learned our grammar there, too. Don't feel badly if you didn't, though - just feel bad. We can all make fewer mistakes in our speech and writing if we spend less time ignoring them and more energy correcting them.

(Note: I am also irritated by the "evolution" of language to accommodate wide-spread incorrect usage that has become universally accepted. Such is the case with the word nauseous. When I was growing up I learned that nauseous doesn't mean "nauseated" but rather "nauseating" - so when people say anesthesia makes them nauseous, they're really saying it makes them make other people sick; but now the dictionaries declare that because the use of the word nauseous to mean "nauseated" is essentially universal, it's now the acceptable correct use of the word. C'est la vie. Grammatici certant et adhuc sub iudice lis est.)

9. Failure to include " also" in a not only/but also construction.

10. People saying "revert back" insead of "revert" and "The thing is, is that" to begin a sentence.

Runner-up: failure to make appropriate use of the subjunctive.

Perhaps some might call me a grammar snob or language elitist. So be it. I think we should CARE how we articulate our thoughts and use the tremendous gift of written and spoken language. I believe correct use of the English language promotes clarity and conveys the intelligence that has allowed its use at all. Sharing ideas is one of the most important things we can do; we should share them well.