Now, I can just hear the disgruntled voices out there, complaining about yet another verbal assault on the great unwashed by a self-proclaimed grammar Nazi. However, that is not my intent. I'm not talking about minor infractions of those arcane grammar rules known only to a select group. Unarguably, there are certainly cases where proper grammar usage sounds, well, improper (not to mention stiff and pretentious): When's the last time you heard someone refer to a single piece of “data” in the grammatically-correct-but-still-dumb-sounding “datum”? Nor am I suggesting I'm immune to linguistic error. In fact, I'm sure that my own humble blog postings have their share of dangling participles, split infinitives and run-on sentences.
Instead, what I'm addressing here are the basics, people! Just look around you, and you'll see what I mean. Even as the diet foods we buy at the supermarket have “less calories” (the inference apparently being that overeating makes you illiterate, too), we are restricted to “10 items or less” at the checkout counter. People have “exercise regimes” (guess there's been a fitness coup) while foreign countries have “hostile regimens”. My own personal favorite is from a recent news broadcast where the anchorman referenced the proposed “beautification” of Pope John Paul II. (I'm pretty sure the guy meant to say “beatification”, but since he said it twice, you couldn't very well argue that he just misread the copy, now could you?)
We've all heard that expression “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”. I don't know that I've ever believed that, since I've always been more of a “pen is mightier than the sword” kind of gal. However, I do know that these butcheries of the English language truly pain me (and my sensitive ears).
Everywhere you look these days you will see misspellings, bad sentence structure and the denuding of our collective vocabulary through the assignment of value judgments to mere words (more on that later). For the most part, I blame technology, popular advertising, and the “Political Correctness" movement for the carnage.
CONJUNCTION JUNCTION, WHAT'S YOUR MALFUNCTION:
THE INTERNET AS ANTICHRIST
Subtitles notwithstanding, I have nothing against the Internet, per se (after all, I'm here, aren't I?). However, widespread use of the Internet (and its minions) as a communication medium has resulted in excessive use of acronyms and partial words to save typing time; frequent misspelling and bad grammar by its users; and over-reliance on the spell check tool to do our thinking for us.
In particular, the increased usage of online and electronic communication devices such as email, online message boards, and texting has spawned a shorthand language of its own. With all the OMGing, ROFLing, IMOing, JKing, ITAing and TMIing, people hardly ever see full words anymore, never mind proper English.
I also think that the “spell check” tool is not helping matters any. I'm sure that whomever invented spell check had the best of intentions. However, even as the invention of the hand-held (and cheap) calculator seemed to make simple addition and subtraction skills a thing of the past, so too does the “spell check” function allow people to turn off the spelling button in their brains. Instead, people rely on spell check as a crutch, which means they rarely bother to understand language. As a result, you see words used that are
- “your” versus “you're” (as in “your an idiot”);
- “woman” versus “women” (as in “your an idiot and for every women...”);
- “its” versus “it's” (as in “your an idiot and every dog has it's day”);
- "to” versus “too” (as in “is it to difficult to ask why your an idiot?"); and
- “jibe” versus “jive” (as in “you're facts don't jive and your an idiot”).
Actually, come to think of it, I think it's just one individual making all these errors, but you can see what I mean....
Notwithstanding all of the above, however, technology is only one of the guilty parties in this terrible troika. Equally to blame is the constant reinforcement of bad spelling and “lazy” grammar through advertising and, to a lesser extent, our reference books.
Notwithstanding all of the above, however, technology is only one of the guilty parties in this terrible troika. Equally to blame is the constant reinforcement of bad spelling and “lazy” grammar through advertising and, to a lesser extent, our reference books.
Instead of maintaining language standards, we have persistently “dumbed down” to the lowest common denominator in society, codifying slang while in effect throwing in the grammatical towel. One of the worst offenders: Advertisements.
Simply put, advertising is a scourge on the English language. In fact, I would venture to say that for as long
as advertising has been around, there has been a consistent trend to use deliberate (or not) misspellings and fractured grammar to promote products and services. Theories vary on whether advertisers are doing this in an effort to speak to the “common man” (by using “our” language) or whether they are just populated by marketing majors who wouldn't know a noun from an adverb. As a result, I'm not sure whether to feel insulted or appalled (and yet strangely superior). Either way, Madison Avenue has been laying waste to our collective IQs for a very long time.
I remember growing up to the tag line “Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee” (a truly tortured double negative) and liking Pillsbury frosting because it “[s]preads as good as it tastes”. Today, the cable network TNT promises “More movies, less commercials”, while Outback restaurant encourages us to “live adventurous”. (As an aside, how does eating at a chain restaurant constitute doing anything adventurous(ly), bad meals and e.coli notwithstanding?)
And it doesn't end there. The list of “cleverly” misspelled brand names is seemingly endless: Acuvue Oasys contact lenses. Bonz dog biscuits. Star-kist tuna. Froot Loops cereal. Reddi-wip whipped cream (two for the price of one!). Is it any wonder none of us knows how to spell?
It must be really frustrating being an English teacher these days. What chance does an English grammar textbook have against the steady bombardment of advertising slogans (which, after all, are designed to be memorably catchy)?
Meanwhile, each year the dictionary, which used to set the lexicon bar for us, has populated itself with slang words and phrases such as “yutz”, “wuss”, “google”, “soul patch” (don't ask, don't tell), “bling”, and “unibrow” (the synonym of which presumably would be “monobrow”). Even “ain't”, a word which through the decades had been so reviled by the linguistic cognoscenti that it even had its own song of terror and woe, has been officially accepted into the dictionary (though, to my knowledge, nobody fell in a bucket of paint as a result).
All that being said, the dictionary does still have some standards. As far as I know, former Vice President Dan Quayle's notorious misspelling of the word “potato” as “potatoe” (evidently referring to the little-known three-toed variety of spud) has yet to be embraced in print. But give it time.
In all seriousness, when slang words become part of the dictionary, they not only “dumb down” our language; they also dilute whatever value these words may have once had as “out-of-the-box” expression.
I'M OK, BUT YOU'RE NOT (OK)
Adding slang terms to the dictionary is a case of common usage dictating grammatical standards, but the so-called “political correctness” movement (or “PC”, for you acronym junkies) is an example of social standards dictating actual usage. Every year, just as poor erstwhile planet Pluto was banned from our solar
Everywhere, words that describe someone or something too directly are now verboten, destined to wither on the vocabulary vine, leaving us with not only fewer options but an imprecise terminology. But what's the point? You can try to police what people say (to some extent), but you'll never police the way people think entirely. That's the way it works and that's the way it's always been.
After all, there was a time (and not that long ago) when terms like “moron”, “imbecile” and “idiot” were used as scientific terms to identify categories of lower intelligence. It's only when people started using those terms outside of their original scope that the terms were deemed offensive or otherwise insulting (in short, words by themselves don't hurt people, people hurt people). However, once you've established the precedent of assigning value judgments to ordinary words, it's just a matter of time before the new politically correct terms suffer the same fate. (And, human nature being what it is (and what it is always seems to be something bad), they will.)
To some extent, I think the “PC” movement is also related to the “I'm ok, you're ok” and “we're all winners” era that ushered in the idea that we're all special and we're all good and talented in our own way. Most of all, no matter how much we may stink at something, no one will ever tell us so.
That being said, if someone were to tell us so, I'm sure it would look something like this: Your spelling and grammar stink (and your an idiot). JK LOL.
Photo credits:
"Googe" screenshot of Google's homepage from February 14, 2007. Photo used by permission and license of aetherworld.
"Potatoe Rama" sign. Photo used by permission and license of lindsayloveshermac.
"Likker Store Open" sign. Photo used by permission and license of quinn.anya
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