Grammar

With a nod to the late William Safire, I'm no language maven but I do appreciate correct use of language whenever possible. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, correct English isn't possible. Other times, there's understandable confusion about which verbal or syntactical form to use. But there are plenty of mistakes that are inexcusable.

One thing that drives me nuts is when people try to speak in an elevated tone and misuse words because they think they sound more sophisticated. Although there is a split of authority on its use, whence actually means from where. When someone says from whence, he's really saying from from where which, in my mind at least, is redundant. It may sound pretty, but it's wrong.

Another thing that is annoying to my ear is when someone prefaces an action with I just want to.... Is someone preventing this person from doing that which she wants? For example, it is often heard said I just wanted to say...well, since you're speaking, why don't you just say it? This happens all the time with I want to thank you for...can't you just thank the person and be done with it?

There is and there are are becoming hopelessly confused. The former refers to singular subjects, the latter to plural subjects. The problem usually crops up when the contraction is used for there is-- there's fifty women in here! Why exactly that's permissible I don't know, but it's wrong.

When I teach Spanish, one of the first things I tell my prospective students (they always have the right to drop the class within the first week or so) is that if they hope to learn a foreign language, they'd better make sure that the language that they hold as native to them isn't foreign to them. Quite often, this refers to knowing the grammatical and syntactical terms like gerunds or imperfect or prepositional pronouns. It helps, too, if you can pronounce the language somewhat competently, knowing that to ask and to ax are pronounced differently. But even when people are only trying to speak in their native tongue, they make such horrible mistakes that it's embarrassing.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles