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Ever read the news banner at the bottom of your TV?
Many times the Grammer stands out and often words spelled wrong.
I will double check my spelling. here when typing and the finished results will show a typo...thank you spell check.
Ever read the news banner at the bottom of your TV?
Many times the Grammer stands out and often words spelled wrong.
I will double check my spelling. here when typing and the finished results will show a typo...thank you spell check.
This is because there's not much editorial oversight on such things, due to their nature.
Take a monthly weekly magazine. Their features sometimes span months of reporting. Other articles are topical, but they still have hours if not days of editorial review. Newspaper stories vary widely. Investigative journalism features may take months or weeks to put together, but the football game or a coup in Africa might be a last-minute addition to the first run. Still, there's an editor looking at everything.
However, the chryon (that's the name for those scrolling bits on news channels) receives little if any pre-broadcast review. That's the nature of ongoing news. Corrections tend to be made on the fly, as needed.
The most errors will be found in closed captioning of live events: speeches, sporting events, breaking news, etc. In these cases, there is literally someone keying in real time the speech, or the commentary by the sports announcer, or the breathless monologue of the news anchor describing the latest mass shooting. Of course this will be full of errors. There is no opportunity for any editorial corrections, and the writing must be rushed just to keep up with the speaker.
There exists this idea that grammar is fixed in a correct state and is in the lamentable process of degeneration. This is, of course, not so. There is no qualitative aspect to grammar. Most of our grammar was held to be incorrect at some point in the recorded history of our language.
Proper grammar becomes improper
One example of this is that classic bugbear of the grammarati, the double negative. Since one cancels the other out - or so the odd grammar-as-mathematics logic goes - only one negative is allowed. Or perhaps three, with two canceling but the remaining (uncancelled) one making the negative? But grammar isn't math, and attempting to parse out the meaning of a sentence by 'adding' the literal meaning of all its components is folly. Languages commonly deploy double negatives and compliment or reinforce each other, as opposed to cancel each other. The Romance languages used double negatives, as do many other languages both Indo-European and otherwise.
In Old English, double negatives were the norm. The usage survived into Early Modern English, though by this time the double negative was mostly used for emphasis. Double negatives crop up in Shakespeare. Anyway, in one English dialect there appeared an alternative to the double negative. Instead of 'I didn't see nothing' the usage 'I didn't see anything' became a common variant. That dialect happened to be the one in widespread use in London, which was increasingly becoming culturally dominant in Britain. Also, there came a pair of influential authors of English grammars inthe late 18th century: Robert Lowth in Great Britain and Lindley Murray in the United States, and they both despised double negatives and sternly denounced them in their works.
The double negative survives in English dialects on both sides of the pond, and elsewhere. But these are not 'prestige' dialects, and the usage is widely dismissed as improper. What changed? Conventional opinion, especially among those with influence.
Improper grammar becomes proper
The reverse can be true as well. Take the past tense of the verb to be. I was and he/she was. We were and they were. The trend is was for singular forms and were for plural forms. This holds with you when referring to a group: you were. But when you is the second-person pronoun, we don't say you was but rather you were. What's going on there?
In Middle English, you was used as a plural form. The singular form was thou. In conjugating to be the past tenses were you were and thou wert. As the language began to transition into Early Modern English, you acquired a new use: in reference to those with lofty standing, such as the king. Inevitably, thou began to be devalued. Soon you was a term for a peer, with thou reserved for a common person. Eventually, thou disappeared and you took on the dual role of serving as both plural and singular second-person pronoun, and when that happened it dragged its plural verb tense along with it. Yet this change was not clean; common usage employed you was, swapping in the singular verb tense for first-person and third-person pronouns to serve the new singular you. We can see the battle play out in writings from the past.
Eventually, however, you were won the battle for conventional opinion. And that's why the plural form, which once would have been entirely incorrect, is the standard for expressing the singular past tense of the verb to be.
Myriad other examples exist
Why is it's always a contraction and never a possessive form? It used to be that it's was indeed a proper possessive form (in Middle English it's replaced his as the neuter possessive and the spelling with the apostrophe continued as accepted practice into the 19th century) but eventually convention changed and now its is correct. And it wasn't welcomed by grammarians. In his A New Grammar of the English Language (1823), T.O. Churchill lamented the loss of the apostrophe in said usage, calling it a 'silly practice'. He also called the contraction it's, increasingly at the time used instead of 'tis, 'very improper'.
Why is pea a singular form? Because in Middle English, the s sound in pease (the singular form) was mistaken as a plural form (which was actually pesen) and the false singular pea was backformed.
Why is apron an English word? Because napron was adopted from French and the English prounciation of a napron sounded so much like an apron that apron replaced napron.
And on and on and on.
Thus, 'proper' grammar dies...
...and is reborn.
It's a moving target. English had always been a body of speakers, some occupying the vanguard of linguistic change and others digging in their heels and clinging to long-established conventions, while most were to be found somewhere between these two opposites. So it was, so it is, so it will be.
Being nifty or hard and fast with language is all well and good, if you're coming from an informed place.
E.g. a double negative can sometimes sound more emphatic. If it's a choice the luxury comes without a debit.
I always assumed that editors checked obituaries before they were printed in newspapers. I recently saw an obituary that read, "After 42 years of marriage, her and her husband relocated to..."
I always assumed that editors checked obituaries before they were printed in newspapers. I recently saw an obituary that read, "After 42 years of marriage, her and her husband relocated to..."
Major Los Angeles newspaper.
OMG. I hear TEACHERS say "Me and so and so' ALL the time. My daughter's IEP case worker sent me and email last week:
Here it is:
On December 4th, (DAUGHTER) has an AP Euro project due so today in Resource I shared a graphic organizer with her. Her and I broke the assignment down into smaller portions and made a schedule for her to work on over this next week. Below I am attaching the rubric for the assignment, the outline I made for her (which she started working on in resource today) and the schedule we made to complete the "Position Paper" portion of the assignment.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
This stuff makes me crazy. My other daughter constantly says "Me and so and so'... I correct her EVERY TIME.
I agree. The standard of written (and often spoken) English is abhorrent today. If you want to know what proper English should look like, then pick up a copy of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". Any standard of English less than that great example can be considered a cheap counterfeit at best.
I agree. The standard of written (and often spoken) English is abhorrent today. If you want to know what proper English should look like, then pick up a copy of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". Any standard of English less than that great example can be considered a cheap counterfeit at best.
I get it for grammar always. So keeping short. English still is a ever-changing evolving language. I just pick up a King James Bible, or Shakespeare, or Early American key documents of that era.
So in reality? Why aren't they the true English versions of even today? Changes and spellings for the US words by Webster also added. Though never fully as much a he probably could have?
Each era had its proper grammar, sentence structuring to spelling. But it continues to change and slang words added and word meanings etc.
OMG. I hear TEACHERS say "Me and so and so' ALL the time. My daughter's IEP case worker sent me and email last week:
Here it is:
On December 4th, (DAUGHTER) has an AP Euro project due so today in Resource I shared a graphic organizer with her. Her and I broke the assignment down into smaller portions and made a schedule for her to work on over this next week. Below I am attaching the rubric for the assignment, the outline I made for her (which she started working on in resource today) and the schedule we made to complete the "Position Paper" portion of the assignment.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
This stuff makes me crazy. My other daughter constantly says "Me and so and so'... I correct her EVERY TIME.
Language morphs, and that's such a common error that I'd bet in a few years it will be considered an alternative correct way to speak. Everyone seems to do it. My adult sons all know it's not correct but that's the language they use.
What I dislike more is the use of I when Me is called for, or I is made possessive. "Would you like to go to the store with Jim and I?" "Jim and I's boat parked at the dock".
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