The grumpy old grammarian

Here we go again, someone complaining about the standards of grammar today. I can already hear your responses: What a pedantic old fart. Well, I am not that old, nor pedantic. The jury is still out on the last one. And a disclaimer: for illustrative purposes I deliberately include grammatical mistakes in this article. It’s up to the readers to find them!)

What is happening to English grammar, punctuation and pronunciation?

First of all, apostrophes. I concede: I’ve given up on apostrophe’s. We have lost not only this battle but the entire apostrophe war. I have given up bemoaning “Stereo’s and plasma TV’s” or “Pasta, Parma and Pizza’s” on windows and signs, and don’t even get me started on “it’s” and “its”. I think that in their despair at ever mastering an understanding of this annoying punctuation mark, sign writers simply take a punt. If they haven’t used one in a few words, it must be time for one, so in one go’s at random, and if it is in its correct place, who care’s? (Yes, who cares indeed?)

Now, take “just between you and I”. This annoys me and I am not willing to concede. Listen: would you say, “Sit next to I? Give it to I? Look at that bird flying over I?” Then why is it “Between you and… I”? This is not so hard to figure out, once you take the time to hear it, but it is now not only apparently acceptable to say “Between you and I”, it actually sounds as if the speaker has mastered the Queens English. (I know the Queen’s English. So’s her husband!).

What is happening? Is it due to less hours of instruction in our schools? No, it is not less hours but fewer hours. It would be “less time” but it is “fewer” hours. But less and less people care. Or is it fewer…?

And it is also the pronunciation of words which is very annoying. People are “vul-ner-able”, not “vun-rable”, or “vun-er-able”. Is it so difficult to see the letter L and to include it in our speech? Of course, this shouldn’t be a cause for enmity, nor for emnity, which I hear regularly.

I understand that language is fluid, and that what is thought to be “rules” are conventions. Language and these conventions can and do evolve. New words are coined all the time. Meanings of words change over time. The linguist Kate Burridge in her book Blooming English (ABC Books, c 2002) provides numerous examples, such as bimbo, slut, hunk and many more. She even explains how black once meant white! Shakespeare’s English clearly isn’t ours, and that’s fine. There isn’t even a single “English”, as the language varies across cultures, ages and socio-economic divides.

I accept that my own writing is evidence of this. A learned friend often reads my letters or articles and invariably corrects my split infinitives, or moves prepositions from the end of sentences. These no longer matter, I tell him, as there are no eternal rules.

There are those of us who try to retain the conventions we have been taught. But we now sound as if we are not speaking English correctly, or, perhaps, as if we are trying to sound superior, and come across as arrogant grammar snobs.

Is it worth worrying about? Do we even need apostrophes in print? After all, we don’t hear them in our speech. Why worry about them on paper or screens? Is it “who” or “whom”? Whom cares? People are making themselves understood, and that is the essence of language and communication, is it not?

Perhaps. But what concerns me is that the examples I have provided stem from, I believe, taking the easy way out and “going with the flow” instead of thinking about what we hear before uncritically adopting it in our own speech and writing.

I worry that quick, uncritical acceptance of new conventions is a sign of uncritical acceptance of ideas, not just of words. If we don’t stop to think about how others’ and our own messages are expressed, will we stop and think about what these messages actually are, or just blindly accept them?

What is the answer? I know what mine is. I will not correct others when I hear what to my ears is “wrong”, but at the same time I will make every effort to maintain the standards and conventions as I have learned them, even if others think I am incorrect.

It may not be a big deal to them, but it is to I.

Or is it?

What is your grammatical pet peeve? Tell us in the comments below…