Browsing several websites today, I came across numerous crimes against the English language. Of course, this is not new. I find these every day, many times, and every single time I find one it annoys me. I can't help it. I despise the misuse of the language, and I'm not talking about a few typos. They happen to everyone occasionally. No, what I'm talking about is the systematic repetition of poor language skills. These skills were taught at junior school, or they were when I was at junior school, yet so many of them have been forgotten or simply ignored. These crimes against the language should never be seen in posts, letters, emails or any written communication from adults. I exclude here anyone who does not have English as their first language (although I have to say, many foreign-speaking people seem to grasp written English better than a high proportion of native English speakers), anyone with dyslexia or a similar learning disability, and anyone under the age of 10. These people all have a valid excuse, and this rant is in no way targeted at them. No, I am talking about normal, educated, responsible English speaking adults. Some of these people hold senior positions at work; most are parents; they have an IQ in three figures. Yet many of these people will consistently mangle the language in a way that makes me cringe. If job applications had to be hand written, I believe many of these people would fall at the first hurdle, simply because they have the writing and cognitive skills of a nine year old. I have listed some of the most common, and the most annoying. Ask yourself, in all honesty, if you are guilty of any of these linguistic crimes.
1. "I went out and brought a new CD." Oh, really? Where did you bring it to? You see, brought is the past tense of bring. Did you in fact purchase a new CD? Did you intend to say you BOUGHT a new CD? Bought is the past tense of buy. There is no 'r' in bought. At first I thought these might be typos, but the same individuals keep using the wrong word, so they clearly believe it's the right one. Either that, or they just don't care. Either way, it's a crime.
2. "They have made there minds up." This one always makes me angry. I was taught the difference between there and their when I was about seven. The word there refers to a place or location - "I would love to go there again," for example. The word their is possessive, meaning something belonging to or owned by someone or, in this case, by more than one, hence the plural possessive, their - "They have made their minds up."
3. Use of text-speak: "r u @ home tmrw? gr8!" Unless you are actually sending a text on your mobile, textspeak has no place in the written language. It came about because of the need to be brief, quick and to reduce the number of characters in a text. It is just about acceptable on Twitter, perhaps, as there is a limit on the number of characters in an individual tweet. I understand that, and am happy with that in such contexts, even though I very rarely use such shorthand myself. I find them inexplicable on Facebook, in emails or in other forms of communication. It is, to me, a very lazy way of writing, and conveys to the reader that they are not considered important enough by the writer to spend any time or effort in communicating properly with them.
4. "Wish you where here." This is so similar to point 2 that I could have included it there, but I think it does warrant its own mention. Where and were are not the same. They are not interchangeable. Were is the past tense of was (do not, however, say "wish you was here" as that is wrong, too!) and where signifies a location, such as "where are you?" Again, something I was taught at a very young age.
5. The aberrant apostrophe. (If you don't know what aberrant means, I fear I may already be flogging a dead horse!) This is the crime of adding apostrophes to any word which ends in an s. "I've forgotten my book's" and so forth. First of all, plurals DO NOT need an apostrophe at the end. The plural of book is books. This is entirely different from saying "that book's mine." Here, the apostrophe replaces the word 'is'. "That book IS mine." It is also used for the possessive, as in, "That's John's book." Note there are two separate apostrophes here. "That is the book belonging to John." Where the single form of the word ends in an s, the apostrophe should come after the s, as in, "That is James' book." This also applies to the plural possessive, as in, "The girls' teacher was late." This shows there were several girls, whereas "The girl's teacher was late" refers to one girl only.
(I bet you're all bored now, right? Well, too bad. I have more.)
6. Excessive use of LOL. I hate this acronym with a passion. It has become almost the norm now for some people to add this to every sentence, regardless of how inappropriate it might be to do so. It means "laugh out loud", but it seems to be replacing a full stop for far too many people. I have actually resorted to blocking people from my Facebook timeline because they are incapable of making any comment without using LOL, or simply saying LOL in place of anything else. (Please note, if you comment on any of my posts using this acronym, that comment WILL be deleted.) It truly has become ridiculous.
Bert: My dog just died, LOL
Fred: Sorry to hear that, LOL
Why would anybody "laugh out loud" at such a post? Yet this is not an exaggeration. I've seen it. Once again, it shows laziness and a complete lack of thought. It's not the sort of thing an intelligent person would use, except occasionally when they do, indeed, want to laugh out loud, and even then, unless it's in an actual text, why not just use actual words?
In the interests of time, and also to stop most of you becoming even more rigid with boredom, I'll make that do for now. There are a few others I could mention, such as using the word loose when the word they mean is lose (don't loose your keys), using the word whole instead of hole (I fell down a whole today), and the rather puzzling one of using the word QUIET when the correct word would be QUITE, but maybe I'll save some of them for another time.
I'm not looking for perfection. I don't expect everyone to write Shakespearean-standard English, or use long words or fancy language. I simply expect plain, correct and thoughtful use of our precious English language. Sadly, not even professional writers seem capable of the correct use of words. Mis-spellings and bad punctuation seem to crop up in news articles every day. People who have degrees in English seem unable to spell or choose correct words. It's a crying shame. Please help to preserve our language by at least making an effort to check what you write to make sure you have communicated your thoughts in the clearest and most accurate way that you can. It really isn't hard. I'm not out to offend anyone. If you are guilty of any of these "crimes", hopefully I have helped to make you aware of it so that you can improve your language skills.
With today's technology we are able to communicate in more ways than ever before, yet the standard of written English has plummeted, particularly in people under the age of 30 or so. It can be no coincidence that this also corresponds with the decline in reading among adults. Those who do not read books are not as articulate as those who read regularly, because they are not exposed to the proper use of language. Their vocabulary not only fails to increase but actually diminishes.
We are the guardians of our language. If we do not use it correctly, how can we expect future generations to do so? After all, they will learn from us. We all have a responsibility to take care of the language and use it properly, just as we would with a family heirloom or a priceless antique. Our language is more valuable than either of these. Please be careful with it.
Rant over! (for now!)
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