TOUCHING UP OUR ENGLISH JUST A TAD

Any person who has attended elementary and high school will recall exposure to an annual parade of English language teachers, whose task was to ensure that the students would spend their adult lives speaking in a flawless manner. Despite such devoted effort, upon hearing today’s ordinary street dialogue, and even radio or television utterances, it’s obvious how miserably they’ve all failed.

This writer was somehow blessed with the surprising ability to remember every single grammatical rule thrown at him and his classmates throughout the lengthy ordeal. Although not the world’s most magnificent natural endowment, such condition has never gone unappreciated. Unhappily, we’ve found this to be far from the case with a substantial majority of our native populace.

Not a single conversation-listening or TV-watching day goes by without our being forced to grimace slightly over a deluge of fundamental speech errors. They range from frightful down to relatively minor, and are all in conflict with the explicit schoolroom instructions put forth by every Miss or Sister Pruneface seated up front.

The oral butchery we encounter on the street, with its rash of double negatives, wrong pronouns, incorrect verb forms, improper noun or adjective selection, misused prepositions, and the like might as well be summarily ignored. Such constant and uncontrollably misguided output is best written off, as would be a bad loan to your shiftless brother-in-law. They add up to sheer hopelessness, with no solution in sight.

However, what we view as the prime correctible sins are those committed by that vast array of persons whose livings are earned by addressing the public on a daily basis. Television, which holds predominance in our modern media world, is therefore the chief source of our private dilemma.

News and sports announcers, political pundits, talk show hosts, commercial message blabbers, and even congressmen are often heard uttering vocal errors, in what we may fittingly call benign disdain for those dedicated English teachers who once strove so valiantly on their behalves.

If a reader should choose to challenge any point we cover below regarding basic rules, our response will be either to “look it up” or else “go consult an English teacher”. Unfortunately though, following this latter route may prove fruitless, since we’ve had a few disturbing past experiences in encountering Prunefaces whose detailed language cognizance fell below acceptable standards.

Misapplied Pluralization
Pronouns which come under what we call the “indefinite” category and pertain to persons may sound plural by their nature, but are decidedly singular. Such treatment applies to “anyone”, “anybody”, “everyone”, “everybody”, “no one”, and “nobody”.

When any of the above terms is followed by a possessive adjective which modifies a noun, pluralization can never apply. In order to cut through the gobbledegookery of the statement we’ve just made, typical incorrect examples are cited below.

Anyone (or anybody) must live up to their standards.
Everyone (or everybody) wants to have their own way.
No one (or nobody) likes to have their dreams spoiled.

In each above instance, the possessive adjective must be either his or her. There are absolutely no exceptions.

The same principle applies when using the word “each”, in apparent reference to multiple persons. As a memory aide, think of the once-famous song and the old movie, both entitled To Each His Own.

Wrong Case Before Gerund
For those whose minds need a little refreshing, a gerund is a verb form that ends with “ing” and thus becomes a noun under certain context circumstances. If a personal pronoun adjective is required to precede it, the possessive case must be used. Again, we’ll illustrate with a few common erroneous examples, followed by the proper form.

The crowd cheered at me scoring a touchdown. (my)
I don’t like you getting into fights. (your)
The policeman became curious over him standing around. (his)
I heard about her being sick. (her – this one’s free!)
The storekeeper wasn’t happy about us stealing his merchandise. (our)
We’re upset over them having difficulties. (their)

The same doctrine will normally apply where a noun is used in an adjectival sense, as shown below.

Parents seldom approve of their children eating junk food. (children’s)
Tell me about Betty attending school. (Betty’s)
We deplored Senator Foghorn shouting about the federal budget. (Foghorn’s)

A gerund should not be confused with the present participle verb form, spelled the same way, but becoming an adjective rather than a noun. We regret to say, however, that the distinction isn’t always too clear.

Superfluous Personal Pronouns
CNN’s well-known political reporter Wolf Blitzer commits this type of error night after night on his regular broadcasts, and he’s certainly not the medium’s only offender.

When referring to a specific person or group by name, it is absolutely incorrect to follow immediately with the related pronoun. The following examples state the case quite readily.

Peyton Manning, he’s a fine quarterback.
Michelle Obama, she appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show.
Our foreign aid program, it’s a complex matter.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee, they met yesterday.

An individual’s or organization’s name provides adequate identification, so no need exists to embellish a sentence by adding a redundant pronoun. This is precisely in accordance with the King’s or Queen’s English rulebook.

Adjectives Used as Adverbs
The German language, a first cousin to English, contains a certain uniqueness, with the adjective and related adverb forms being the same, making matters a bit easier, at least in one isolated respect, for our counterpart citizens over yonder. We Anglophiles are granted only a small handful of similar opportunities.

However, we often hear additional adverb liberties being taken, as below.

Our family eats good. (well)
His new suit fits perfect. (perfectly)
Tom spoke direct to the commanding officer. (directly)
She fixed the dinner table up nice. (nicely)
We played the game bad. (badly)
They shouted too loud. (loudly)

Possessive Form of Else
There once was a rule which forbade using the word “else” in a possessive sense after an indefinite pronoun, but it seems to have disappeared from the books, and we consider that a fortunate development.

Technically speaking, the archaic means called for the following type of expression.

Anyone’s (or anybody’s) else contribution will be appreciated.
Everyone’s (or everybody’s) else clothing was gaudier.
No one’s (or nobody’s) else shoes will fit me.
That is someone’s (or somebody’s) else problem.

We thank our lucky stars that such silly sounding word combinations have disappeared from official use, allowing “else” to serve as a sort of specialized word under proper conditions.

After All Is Said and Done
Perhaps this fellow belongs to a very remote minority group, whose minds are devoted to 100% rulebook-adhering English. Nevertheless, we’re bound to go on wincing and gulping whenever the person on the TV screen utters a statement which fails to meet our somewhat stringent standards. Even though it’s most likely that we’ll have to go on living with this personally distasteful situation, we can’t resist the urge to fight windmills by a slightly more publicized means than before.