Brief Intermission Two
RANDOM NOTES ON MODERN USAGE
English grammar is confusing enough as it is—what makes it doubly
confounding is that it is slowly but continually changing.
This means that some of the strict rules you memorized so
painfully in your high school or college English courses may no
longer be completely valid.
Following such outmoded principles, you may think you are
speaking “perfect” English, and instead you may sound stuffy and
pedantic.
The problem boils down to this: If grammatical usage is gradually
becoming more liberal, where does educated, unaffected, informal
speech end? And where does illiterate, ungrammatical speech
begin?
The following notes on current trends in modern usage are
intended to help you come to a decision about certain controversial
expressions. As you read each sentence, pay particular attention to
the italicized word or words. Does the usage square with your own
language patterns? Would you be willing to phrase your thought in
just terms? Decide whether the sentence is right or wrong, then
compare your conclusion with the opinion given in the explanatory
paragraphs that follow the test.
TEST YOURSELF
1. If you drink too many vodka martinis, you will surely get sick.
RIGHT WRONG
2. Have you got a dollar?
RIGHT WRONG
3. No one loves you except I.
RIGHT WRONG
4. Please lay down.
RIGHT WRONG
5. Who do you love?
RIGHT WRONG
6. Neither of these cars are worth the money.
RIGHT WRONG
7. The judge sentenced the murderer to be hung.
RIGHT WRONG
8. Mother, can I go out to play?
RIGHT WRONG
9. Take two spoonsful of this medicine every three hours.
RIGHT WRONG
10. Your words seem to infer that Jack is a liar.
RIGHT WRONG
11. I will be happy to go to the concert with you.
RIGHT WRONG
12. It is me.
RIGHT WRONG
13. Go slow.
RIGHT WRONG
14. Peggy and Karen are alumni of the same high school.
RIGHT WRONG
15. I would like to ask you a question.
RIGHT WRONG
1. If you drink too many vodka martinis, you will surely get sick.
RIGHT. The puristic objection is that get has only one meaning—
namely, obtain. However, as any modern dictionary will attest, get
has scores of different meanings, one of the most respectable of
which is become. You can get tired, get dizzy, get drunk, or get sick—
and your choice of words will offend no one but a pedant.
2. Have you got a dollar?
RIGHT. If purists get a little pale at the sound of “get sick,” they
turn chalk white when they hear have got as a substitute for have.
But the fact is that have got is an established American form of
expression. Jacques Barzun, noted author and literary critic, says:
“Have you got is good idiomatic English—I use it in speech without
thinking about it and would write it if colloquialism seemed
appropriate to the passage.”
3. No ones loves you except I.
WRONG. In educated speech, me follows the preposition except. This
problem is troublesome because, to the unsophisticated, the
sentence sounds as if it can be completed to “No one loves you,
except I do,” but current educated usage adheres to the technical
rule that a preposition requires an objective pronoun (me).
4. Please lay down.
WRONG. Liberal as grammar has become, there is still no sanction
for using lay with the meaning of recline. Lay means to place, as in
“Lay your hand on mine.” Lie is the correct choice.
5. Who do you love?
RIGHT. “The English language shows some disposition to get rid of
whom altogether, and unquestionably it would be a better language
with whom gone.” So wrote Janet Rankin Aiken, of Columbia
University, way back in 1936. Today, many decades later, the
“disposition” has become a full-fledged force.
The rules for who and whom are complicated, and few educated
speakers have the time, patience, or expertise to bother with them.
Use the democratic who in your everyday speech whenever it sounds
right.
6. Neither of these cars are worth the money.
WRONG. The temptation to use are in this sentence is, I admit,
practically irresistible. However, “neither of” means “neither one of”
and is, therefore, is the preferable verb.
7. The judge sentenced the murderer to be hung.
WRONG. A distinction is made, in educated speech, between hung
and hanged. A picture is hung, but a person is hanged—that is, if such
action is intended to bring about an untimely demise.
8. Mother, can I go out to play?
RIGHT. If you insist that your child say may, and nothing but may,
when asking for permission, you may be considered puristic. Can is
not discourteous, incorrect, or vulgar—and the newest editions of
the authoritative dictionaries fully sanction the use of can in
requesting rights, privileges, or permission.
9. Take two spoonsful of this medicine every three hours.
WRONG. There is a strange affection, on the part of some people,
for spoonsful and cupsful, even though spoonsful and cupsful do not
exist as acceptable words. The plurals are spoonfuls and cupfuls.
I am taking for granted, of course, that you are using one spoon
and filling it twice. If, for secret reasons of your own, you prefer to
take your medicine in two separate spoons, you may then properly
speak of “two spoons full (not spoonsful) of medicine.”
10. Your words seem to infer that Jack is a liar.
WRONG. Infer does not mean hint or suggest. Imply is the proper
word; to infer is to draw a conclusion from another’s words.
11. I will be happy to go to the concert with you.
RIGHT. In informal speech, you need no longer worry about the
technical and unrealistic distinctions between shall and will. The
theory of modern grammarians is that shall-will differences were
simply invented out of whole cloth by the textbook writers of the
1800s. As the editor of the scholarly Modern Language Forum at the
University of California has stated, “The artificial distinction
between shall and will to designate futurity is a superstition that has
neither a basis in historical grammar nor the sound sanction of
universal usage.”
12. It is me.
RIGHT. This “violation” of grammatical “law” has been completely
sanctioned by current usage. When the late Winston Churchill made
a nationwide radio address from New Haven, Connecticut, many,
many years ago, his opening sentence was: “This is me, Winston
Churchill.” I imagine that the purists who were listening fell into a
deep state of shock at these words, but of course Churchill was
simply using the kind of down-to-earth English that had long since
become standard in informal educated speech.
13. Go slow.
RIGHT. “Go slow” is not, and never has been, incorrect English—
every authority concedes that slow is an adverb as well as an
adjective. Rex Stout, well-known writer of mystery novels and
creator of Detective Nero Wolfe, remarked: “Not only do I use and
approve of the idiom Go slow, but if I find myself with people who
do not, I leave quick.”
14. Peggy and Karen are alumni of the same high school.
WRONG. As Peggy and Karen are obviously women, we call them
alumnae (Ə-LUM′-nee); only male graduates are alumni (Ə-LUM′-nī).
15. I would like to ask you a question.
RIGHT. In current American usage, would may be used with I,
though old-fashioned rules demand I should.
Indeed, in modern speech, should is almost entirely restricted to
expressing probability, duty, or responsibility.
As in the case of the charitable-looking dowager who was
approached by a seedy character seeking a handout.
“Madam,” he whined, “I haven’t eaten in five days.”
“My good man,” the matron answered with great concern, “you
should force yourself!”