Grammar Rant
I complained earlier about an Associated Press story that used “it’s” improperly. (Should have been its without an apostrophe!)
I may have ranted about this before. I can never remember what I’ve said here, so I often fear I’ve said it twice.
I just assumed. I assumed that everyone knew the basics of English grammar. I had a boss once with a PhD in health something, and I saw grant applications and various things she wrote before sending them through Word’s spelling/grammar check. I just thought she was a dumbass (which I still believe) and it caused me to think less of the worth of the PhD. (If you have a PhD and don’t know their/they’re/there, then you suck. I call ‘em like I see ‘em.)
I found out I was sorely wrong about it all when I got online. That was in the early 90s, probably about 1993 or so. Typos are expected when quickly doing instant messages, even in emails. But a complete lack of understanding of the following boggles my mind:
its and it’s, there, their and they’re, you’re and your, then and than, and so on.
How does anyone graduate 8th grade and not know these? Maybe I’m being too harsh. I grew up around people who used double negatives, said “ain’t” and other things that make me squirm a bit. Our family did not allow bad grammar, even though we’re mostly farmer stock. Saying ain’t was about as bad as saying fuck you in church.
In my sophomore year of college, I decided to change majors, from mining engineering, to journalism. To get into J School, we had to take two tests: typing and English. As I recall, a candidate had to be able to type 40 words a minute. I had to practice, but I scraped by with 41. Some had to rush off to take a typing class and retry the next semester. But the English test was easy. It was long, but it wasn’t rocket science.
And there were students who didn’t pass that test. I remember wondering, how the hell did you get into university if you couldn’t pass a test like that?
Maybe it’s because I’m a reader and have always been a reader. I’ve heard that people who read a lot tend to spell well because they see how words are spelled. And maybe I just found spelling and grammar an easy subject. Am I expecting too much, or too harsh?
I’m sure I have typos and a misspelled word here and there on this blog. I don’t edit and I don’t proofread, because for me, it’s just a place to ramble. I write all of the time with a purpose, with good organization and good skills. I need a place to blather without thinking about proper sentence structure. So I use sentence fragments, run-on sentences, dangling modifiers and more. Does that make me hypocritical? Maybe it does.
I’ve basically gotten over the their/they’re/there your/you’re issue. It took awhile, but now I see it’s so common that I can live with it.
Unless it’s in an article from major media such as Associated Press. I’ve still got this “you’ve GOT TO BE KIDDING” feeling in my mouth.
I used to teach Russian at a university, and in basic Russian grammar, direct and indirect objects are important. Most of my students remembered it from third grade, but there were always a few who struggled. There was one time that I was so frustrated in trying to teach ENGLISH grammar (to then be able to understand the sentence structure in Russian, which is critical) that I finally went to the English Department and said HELP! They helped and I got better at helping those students comprehend.
And that concludes today’s rant, courtesy of the Associated Press. What a disappointment they have become.
