It happens every couple of weeks or so. I spot a bad sentence in the paper, on a web site, or anywhere… and I go off. A phone call, face-to-face, an e-mail… action Must Be Taken to Fix Your Mistake!!
“Robbery suspect dies after shot by police”.
“Woman recovering after attacked, thrown off bridge”.
It’s no mystery to any professional writer anymore; the style book has been tossed out. And I’m just as guilty as the next person… I make up words in this blog all the time. I go HST Gonzo and report rock solid facts side-by-side with total BS in the same sentence. But I usually do it in a complete sentence, and balance the BS with some worthy material. And frankly, thank goodness for Spell-Check.
It’s easy to think that grammatical skills are declining for a lot of reasons. Truth is, language and writing skills have been under attack since they’ve been in use. The particulars of basic communication are always going to be ignored by a ton of people who strongly believe that getting the truth of their communication across is not only more important than any particular details or rules, but that those rules simply don’t matter.
At the same time, there are individuals out there that believe anything – I mean Anything – outside Strunk & White’s ‘Elements Of Style’ is a punishable offense. These people are usually upper-educated, don’t get out much, and have bad attitudes. They’d be in line with the crowd that tried to limit the public’s access to the printing press when it was first invented.
On top of all this, now we have texting. Literally a new language taking shape right under our noses, and it’s just getting started. All in the name of saving your thumbs as much wear & tear as possible. Never mind that our descendants might develop thumbs the size of our forearms, the ‘language’ of texting is slowly but surely bleeding into verbal & more formal, long-form written communication.
And now... I grow weary of the battle. I guess I do not have what it takes to chill with the Grammar Police. And in my exhaustion, I’ve figured out that language and its use have always been targeted by the smaller, niche, and minority elements in societies as a part of natural cultural rebellion. Think Beatnik poets or Rap... ee cummings’ deconstruction of written text language as an original art form... slaves in the south writing songs about what a bastard their master was - and singing them right in front of him. ‘Correct’ use of language is a myth… invented by those who wish to keep their form of communication limited to people they want to communicate with. And when those rules are broken, wonderful things usually result.
As much as I like the language of my birth, I like witnessing it evolve and change as my life goes on even more. Language is not supposed to be an unmoving, rigid set of rules. It’s fluid, and changes over time. So my tolerance for incomplete sentences and text-speak (verbal and written) is improving, but I’m curious if there are any instances out there that are driving you crazy lately, or if you’re fearful of the impending loss of the English language as we know it. Got teens that text too much? Witnessed some egregious written sin? Let’s hear the fear folks!
I mean, it’s our language... what parts of it do we care about most?
