I have been having mega issues with the blog posts getting mailing and arriving. I think things I straightened out now, but in case you were not able to read last week’s guest post, you really should. It’s great!
Mind Your Language: Verbs and Verbosity
———————————————————————–
A few weeks ago, I asked you for your pet peeves. I didn’t receive much of a response, so I decided I would tell you some of mine:
1. Woke. Woke used to be the past tense of wake. I woke up at nine this morning. Now it is an adjective, which means “socially aware.” I loved woke when I first saw it. I remember posting something on social media about being woke. But now, I am tired of it.
Example: You people who don’t care about climate change need to get woke!
2. Cancel Culture: This is the worst. I never liked it. You don’t cancel people. You cancel television shows. You cancel plans. Now cancel is used to indicate someone has been banished from something because of something they did or said. People have been canceled from Twitter. Mr. Potato Head has been canceled. Dr. Seuss books have been canceled. Argh!!!!! While I agree that some people should be canceled and we not hear or believe anything they might say, I don’t like the term. (You can read whatever you like into that last sentence.)
Possibly the first reference to canceling someone comes with the 1991 film New Jack City, in which Wesley Snipes plays a gangster named Nino Brown. After his girlfriend breaks down because of all the violence he’s causing, he dumps her by saying, “Cancel that bitch. I’ll buy another one.”
3. The wrong pronunciation of mischievous. Mischievous has three syllables, and the first syllable is the one that is stressed. There is no i in the last syllable, and it is not mis chee vee us.
4. Less and Fewer. Most grocery stores have gotten the hint that people in the express line have fewer than twelve items. But many people on the news haven’t. Fewer is for plurals and things that can be counted. Less is for singulars and things that you cannot count:
Examples:There is less traffic this morning than yesterday morning. There are fewer cars on the road this morning.
5. Incorrect past tense. You just have to memorize those irregular verbs.
It isn’t I have ate, I have went, I have swam, I have drank, I have rang.
It is I have eaten, I have gone, I have swum, I have drunk, I have rung.
6. Me and I. The subject of the sentence is I. The object is me.
It isn’t Me and him are leaving now. OR He gave the toy to he and I.
It is He and I are leaving now. He gave the toy to him and me. (He gave the toy to I?????)
7. Don’t used for third person singular.
It is I don’t and you don’t and we don’t and they don’t.
It is he doesn’t and she doesn’t and it doesn’t.
It isn’t he don’t and she don’t and it don’t.
8. Any spelling, punctuation, or capitalization mistake in a headline or slide presentation.
9. On accident. This one has become so prevalent that I am now saying it.
It is by accident, but on purpose.
10. I seen. I haven’t really heard this one in a while, but I sure heard it frequently when I was growing up. And while I am at it, another pet peeve of verbs is using the present tense instead of past.
Example: So I goes up to him and I says hello. And then he punches me.
Here’s hoping my e-mail is all straightened out and you receive this one!
Coming June 1. On presale soon. A change of pace!
Release date: June 1, 2021
Hello Arlene,
To (mis)quote Star Trek, “I whole-heartedly agree” with you. When I first arrived in the USA I still had to learn a lot of vocabulary, of course, but I also started to differentiate “good English” from “bad English”, sometimes simply by checking out who was talking to me; I mean check the level of education. It is sad to admit that most average Americans haven’t made a great effort at mastering their language, one of the easiest in the world. No masculine/feminine to master, no conjugation, no real grammar. And yet, we have people who don’t know the difference between You are, You’re, and Your. It is sad. People should be reminded that “the more you know, the more free (freeer?) you are.” In other words, if you can speak or write properly, you’ll always depend on someone to correct or help you.
Thank you for your blog, it reminds me that there are still some good people in the USA, those who cherish their language.
Thank you for the comment. There are still some good people in the USA – whose who cherish their language — and those who cherish their democracy. However, things seem to have fallen apart as well. While it is wonderful to master your own language, not so much the whole white supremacist Anglo-Saxon thing. Sometimes it is an embarrassment to be in the same country as some of our “politicians” particular in my new state of Florida.
Re: 5. Incorrect past tense. You just have to memorize those irregular verbs.
It isn’t I have ate, I have went, I have swam, I have drank, I have rang.
It is I have eaten, I have gone, I have swum, I have drunk, I have rung.
Those technically are not examples of “past tense” but past participles, which are not the same thing for irregular verbs, as you know (“know” itself being an example: past tense “knew,” past participle “known”).
So past tense: I ate, I went, etc. Past participle: I have eaten, I have gone, etc.
For # 10, the real problem in the example (“I goes up to him and I says hello. And then he punches me.”) would seem to be the subject/verb agreement issue in “I goes” and “I says” (this is also common but annoying, as Tig Notaro has pointed out: “I says to her, I says…”). My theory about using the present tense in describing certain past events is that it provides more immediacy (“We’re all at my aunt’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, and she announces that she thinks turkeys have suffered enough over the years, so we’re going to be having fish sticks instead”). And the academic/reviewer/commentary convention in describing plot and narrative sequence is to use the present tense, as in this description plucked from the internet: “It isn’t until Yossarian gets word that his friend Orr has made it to Sweden, on a rubber dinghy no less, that he realizes there is only one way he will make it out of the war alive with his morals somewhat intact — to run.” So using the present tense to recount past events in so-called real life is not unprecedented, maybe not unforgivable, and perhaps not even “wrong.” The one that still stumps me is using the present tense in newspaper headlines about recent past events, such as the Washington Post’s “Prince Philip Dies at 99”–you would think that dying would be about as past tense as you could get.
Thanks for the comment. You are correct; those are past participle forms. I thought about that because they are used for present perfect tense, not past. I still don’t really care for using present tense for the past. But you are correct, and in some cases, it is the thing to do. When describing what happens in a book or movie you use present tense because the book and movie are still there and not in the past.
When someone is “cancelled”, the reality is the person being “cancelled” is merely being held responsible for what he has said or done. It’s that simple. All of a sudden, the person who was “cancelled ” is a victim, and is not held responsible for his words or actions.
I get your point. Good point, but I still don’t like the word used that way.
That is not what is happening in UK.
A TV presenter says he does not believe a word that Meghan Markle says and he is ‘cancelled’ in that he loses his job. Friends who support his right to free speech are abused on TV have contracts cancelled.
We have people ‘no platformed’ by universities because they dare to hold views that do not conform with ‘woke’ views (e.g. the police should arrest criminals.)
My view has always been that free speech means that I can say whatever I like (providing it is not criminal e.g. incitement to violence) and that I can be as insulting as I want. Free speech means others can be equally insulting to me. Politeness means I choose not use that freedom.
The problem with ‘cancel culture’ is that it always seems all right when your side is doing the cancelling. It ain’t so funny when it’s the other side doing it.
I admit I don’t like the whole canceling thing because in this country it is being used by the right, who are not my favorites – particularly trump Jr. Who cares what he says?
<<>>
What a splendid example of the ‘historic’ or (in this case even) ‘dramatic’ present!
(“… used in vivid narrative of past events.” (‘A Grammar of Contemporary English’, Randolph Quirk & Sidney Greenbaum’; apart from equivalent quotes by Jespersen, Kruisinga, and Zandvoort – the only grammarians I am familiar with). The ‘event’ makes for quite some ‘drama’, indeed!
‘… I says hello.’ Definitely substandard. Funny thing is, though, that the inversion (‘says I’) is quite common in colloquial British English, but considered a vulgarism in America: “All right, says he, let’s call it a bargain – No, says I, not so fast, my lad.”
Afterthought: When Joan Baez sang: ‘I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night / Alive as you and me / Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead” / “I never died” says he / “I never died” says he’, she was repeating the wording of the 1930 Alfred Hayes poem.
Interesting comment! Thank you!
1. What about political correctness?
2. What exactly about woke now used as an adjective that now caused you to grow tired of?
3. Are woke and cancel culture synonymous with political correctness?
Just my personal opinion. I thought woke was very cool when I first used it – haven’t used it since. I think I saw it in a meme. I never liked cancel culture, and that is likely because the polotical right uses it. And I am obviously on the left. I just think it is stupid, mostly because whenever I hear it, I picture it coming from trump jr’s coked up mouth.
My pet peeve is the mis-spelling of you’re..for you are, not your. I guess we all have holes in our learning
I didn’t add that one because it has gone further than being a peeve!
I agree with all that you wrote. But while the very last thing, using present instead of past tense, is incorrect English, it is also a regional colloquialism. So, don’t use it except when writing dialogue for a character from that region.
What region does it come from? I hear it frequently, probably mostly from young people.
Woke and cancel culture are my two biggest pet peeves.
Mine too at the current moment