Re. the deterioration of English grammar in everyday usage

[smart65 28]

A child can be forgiven if he/she uses "me" as a subject in a sentence; time and schooling should solve the problem. "Me Tarzan, you Jane" got the message across. It was rudimentary, but made sense, because Tarzan was illiterate. However, a compound subject which should be of the form "Joe and I" is all too often spoken today as "Me and Joe". This construction is constantly used in reality TV programs such as American Pickers. It's always "Me and Frankie did this or that". Years ago, I worked with a young girl who had a friend named Maria. She would always start her descriptions of their exploits with "Me and Maria", so the practice has been around for a long time.

Recently, a Hamilton Spectator report contained a quotation uttered by the mayor of Mississauga, the third largest city in Ontario.

Me and the council I'm a part of believe it's time for our city to control its own destiny," Bonnie Crombie told the Star Wednesday, shortly after a council vote for an independent study to determine if the city should secede from the region.

Source http://www.thespec.com/news-story/6454956-mayor-wants-mississauga-to-separate-from-peel-region/.

Careless grammar in songs, poems and movie titles, can be overlooked by considering it to be a matter of literary license, but to have a public official demonstrate such poor language is setting a very poor example.

Edited April 7, 2016 by smart65

[MikeT 744]

I am waiting for a wider reveal of installs of bad grammar in the English language. You're mileage may very.

[dmoonen 54]

Spell check didn't pick that one up it seems.

[lebikerboy 96]

Living with an English teacher who notices all the grammatical discrepancies that abound

in today's written and spoken English sure isn't any picnic...

Edited April 7, 2016 by lebikerboy

[jwight 117]

Not so fast....

Grammar Gripers! People Who Troll Your Grammar Are Jerks

[marchanna 115]

Grammar is important. The English language has lost too much already.

[Da Shoumi 3]

I tend to have an emotional relationship with languages, and I do appreciate people who speak and write well, whether in French or in English.

As an English to French translator, receiving poorly written documents tends to be the rule unfortunately, and grammatical errors as well as bastardized structures still make me cringe.

Anyway! I guess my opnion about languages and how people treat them is biaised professionally.

[tolsen 630]

I suggest you introduce a grammar lady on this forum.

Smartz has had one for a considerable time.

The need for proper grammar and punctuation can never be sufficiently over emphasised.

Edited April 8, 2016 by tolsen

[marchanna 115]

I find myself often falling into habits of bad grammar. It's hard to resist because I find that everyone I encounter speaks poorly. It's like swimming against the current. All languages exhibit morphology over time, but English has lost critical components that hinder rudimentary communication. For example: differentiation between plural and singular 2nd person personal pronouns; and different noun case forms.

We rely heavily on context and subtle nuances for a given sentence to make sense. No wonder English is so hard for non-native speakers to learn. Certainly, other languages have this too, but rather use it for the purpose of bringing richness to the understanding, not basic meaning.

[dmoonen 54]

My grammar is horrible, growing up in a family that speaks; Flemish, Dutch, English, Spanish and Cree I know a bit of all but mastered none. I stick to numbers

[yukoner 9]

You don't go to an information desk to get informated, so why the hell would you look to the east to get orientated? Anybody who gets disorientated probably drinks Bud, drops the cans on the roadside and sucks pharts out of dead billy goats.

Just my humble opinion.

[yukoner 9]

And its ET CETERA dammit, not exsetra, and NU-CLEAR, not nook-youler.

[Silver 8]

Sports speak? Between he and whatever. For you and I. Et cetera.

Majority, instead of most.

I think it,all came from the Howard Cosell school of "Sport Speak".

Why use a one syllable when you can employ two or better still utilize three.

[yukoner 9]

Irregardless is a double negative. Lol, lmao, lmfho, and rofl are NOT punctuation. They should at least be preceded by something funny. That seldom seems to be the case.

[MikeT 744]

Irregardless of what you wrote, I could care less about problem's with English.

[marchanna 115]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

[smartnhappy 218]

If King Justin put a quarter in the pot with every "ah" or "um" he says while speaking (not 'speeching'), we'd have no national debt.

"Ya, right, ya know, I mean, like".... seems now to be, for many, a standard start to an answer to any question.

Then there's the ubiquitous, omnipresent word "like".

It's almost as if everyone under 25 is speaking a different language from English.

Like ya know like this really like bugs the hell out of me, ya know.

[MikeT 744]

You know, it's like ummm yeah whatever, eh?

[marchanna 115]

I've been working on not saying "gunna" anymore. It's been a challenge.

[yukoner 9]

Irregardless of what you wrote, I could care less about problem's with English.

I finally figured that one out Mike T. Well worded!

[Rashutti 0]

A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la Casa.'

'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.'

A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?'

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because:

1.. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2.. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;

3.. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and

4.. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because:

1.. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2.. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;

3.. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and

4.. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

[smartnhappy 218]

How about these English-isms.

[MikeT 744]

How about: you're all working too hard here?

[yukoner 9]

Agreed.

But if you're interested there's a book: Mother Tongue, English and how it got to be that way. It explains how Boxes and oxen came to be and how houses nearly became housen.

Cheers

[yukoner 9]

My apologies for carrying this thread farther...

Has anybody else noticed the replacement of "You're welcome" with "No problem"? I really find that irritating, but if I called the speaker on it I'd be less polite than they are.