English, How She Is Spoke

We interrupt your Christmas shopping for this very important announcement. I am going to share with you a few of my pet peeves regarding the current state of spoken English in the United States of America. If correct grammar is a big pain in the neck to you, a ho-hum inducer, a non-issue, if you are tempted to check out now, please don’t leave just yet. You might learn something that could land you a better-paying job someday.

First, a couple of disclaimers: I have no problem whatsoever with listening to the English of people who learned it as a second language; the way they speak is often quite charming. Nor do I have a problem with how English is spoken by people in England, the only country in the world that does not officially exist. After all, they invented it. And by the way, they are not the ones with the accents. We are.

No, my problem is with the way many people born and educated in the United States, who claim English as their native tongue, speak English. I’m confining myself to spoken language here; I’m not going to bring up the things that drive me crazy about written English -- your/ you’re, its/it’s, there/their/they’re, and so forth. That is a topic for another day.

Here, in no particular order (although I’ve used numerals instead of bullets -- so sue me, Society for Technical Communication), are some of the things that drive me crazy about the English I hear spoken every day:

1. Using objective case pronouns when the nominative case is needed. You may have heard this so much that it has begun to sound right to you, but it isn’t right when the subject of a sentence is involved.

Wrong: Me and her went to the mall.
Right: She and I went to the mall.

Wrong: Me and him are friends.
Right: He and I are friends.

(Helpful hint: When wondering whether objective or nominative case should be used, try dropping the other person from the phrase and listen to yourself: Her went to the mall? A three-year-old may talk that way, but adults shouldn’t. Me went to the mall? Not unless you are Cookie Monster. Also, putting yourself last in a list is always a courteous thing to do, because you are not the center of the universe. As Rick Warren put it in the first sentence of the first chapter of The Purpose-Driven Life, “It’s not about you.”)

2. Using nominative case pronouns when the objective case is needed. You may notice that this is the exact opposite of the previous peeve. (If this were a vocabulary lesson, I would introduce the word antipodal here, but it isn’t, so I won’t.)

Wrong: Just between you and I, this is pretty boring.
Right: Just between you and me, this is pretty boring.
Better: Just between you and me, this is fascinating.

Wrong: Dad gave twenty dollars to she and I.
Wrong: Dad gave twenty dollars to me and her. (oops, not courteous)
Right: Dad gave twenty dollars to her and me.
Better: Dad gave a hundred dollars to me.

Wrong: I was saving that piece of cake for Jethro and I.
Right: I was saving that piece of cake for Jethro and me.

(Helpful hint: Would you say, “To I”? “For I”? No way.)

Better: I was saving that piece of cake for myself. Jethro can eat dog food.

3. Using auxiliary verbs with a simple past tense verb instead of with the past participle. I hear this all the time and it drives me bonkers.

Wrong: We had went to the supermarket to buy our weekly groceries.
Right: We had gone to the supermarket to buy our weekly groceries.
Better: We had gone to the supermarket to buy beer to take to the football game.

Wrong: They had drove all the way to Yellowstone National Park.
Right: They had driven all the way to Yellowstone National Park.
Better: They had driven all the way back to the supermarket to buy more beer to take to the football game.

Wrong: He has swam in the pool all afternoon.
Right: He has swum in the pool all afternoon.
Better: He won’t be allowed anywhere near the pool when he comes home from the football game.

People in England don’t have this problem with language because (a) they have little grocery stores owned by local Moms and Pops instead of supermarkets, (b) they would drown if they tried to drive all the way to Yellowstone National Park, and (c) their yards are much too small to include swimming pools. Also, they care a lot more about speaking their language correctly than many people here in the States do. The English don’t want to be thought of as dummies, but we don’t seem to mind. Speaking of which, my next pet peeve is:

4. Using snuck as the past tense of sneak and drug as the past tense of drag. This two-pronged attack on all that’s holy (reminder to self: Add bifurcated to next vocabulary lesson) is absolutely the most irritating and brain-numbing pet peeve in the history of the world, in my humble opinion. You are free, of course, to argue that my opinion is not all that humble, but in that direction lies only madness. For now, I do not care that language is a living thing and constantly changing or that the dictionary is not a book of rules but merely contains milepost signs along the communication highway. (Well, actually, I do care, but since that doesn’t further my side of the argument one bit, I prefer not to go there.)

Wrong: She snuck into the house at two-thirty in the morning.
Right: She sneaked into the house at two-thirty in the morning.
Better: She got home at eleven o’clock.

Wrong: Stone Cold Steve Austin drug Hulk Hogan all over the ring.
Right: Stone Cold Steve Austin dragged Hulk Hogan all over the ring.
Better: Hulk Hogan pinned Stone Cold Steve Austin in thirty seconds flat.

I can’t think of a good way to end this post, so I will simply stop. Four pet peeves are enough for one afternoon, especially when one of them is bifurcated. End of rant.

You may now return to your Christmas shopping.

P.S. -- In an attempt to keep my “goody two shoes” image intact, I am disclosing today that I don’t drink beer. I tried it a long time ago and decided very quickly that it looks, smells, and tastes like it has already been through a horse. If I ruled the world, drinking beer while watching a football game would be illegal. I was just trying to be funny a few paragraphs back. Just so you know.