A Question of Grammar

“The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.”

― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

Every so often there will be a piece in a newspaper, or a feature in a television news programme about English usage. Sometimes, normally in the newspaper article, this will be a tirade bemoaning the decline in the standard of spoken, but more usually written English. Television features on the subject tend to be more even handed, with proponents of the view that English is evolving and that the perceived decline in standards is merely a feature of that evolution on one side and those critical of these slipping standards on the other.

Naturally languages evolve (apart from Latin), otherwise we would all still be speaking like Geoffrey Chaucer but there is a world of difference between a language evolving and it being mutilated. There is a notion that surfaces from time to time, that grammar, spelling and punctuation are to some degree redundant and that as long as an idea is communicated clearly, these do not matter. The problem with this belief is that to communicate clearly and unambiguously, grammar, spelling and punctuation are actually quite important.

I recently saw on television a piece where commentators were talking about the difference between there, their and they’re:  three words that sound the same but have different meanings depending upon spelling. Would it really matter if we had only one spelling? A sentence could become, “There was a time when parents would walk there children to school, now there taking them by car.” Albeit it looks odd, it still makes sense, but I’m not sure that I could accept it in substitution of the correct form.

What I cannot abide however, to the point where I almost have to be restrained, is the apparent belief that “have” and “of” are synonyms. I have seen, even in newspaper articles, the use of “of” in place of “have,” as in “He should of taken an umbrella.” The idea that these two words are synonymous, and that belief appears to have gathered some momentum, could lead to absurd sentences like, “I of bought some bananas, but some have them of gone bad.”

In fact “have” appears to be a word that is being excised from language by degrees and with it goes “may” which is being supplanted by the more aggressive “can”. An expression, heard commonly in coffee bars and which seems to have migrated across the Atlantic, substitutes “get” for “have” as in “Can I get a tall, skinny latte?”  instead of the more orthodox “May I have...” I await, not too optimistically, for the day when a barista answers, “I don’t know; can you?” or “No, but you may have one, which I shall get for you.” When I say that this is an expression, or form of usage, that has been imported into the UK I imply no criticism of our American cousins, who can evolve the English language as they see fit, it is just that it jars with me when I am queuing in Starbucks in some small English town and hear someone order coffee as though they were a member of the cast of Friends. [1]

Every generation bemoans what they see as a decline in standards as exhibited by the young and in language those of us of a certain age have ammunition aplenty as a result of the explosion in the use of texting and Twitter. Texting and tweeting, with the limited number of characters available, make brevity crucial, but although brevity may be the soul of wit, it is not a guarantee of clarity in communication.

Texting in particular has generated any number of acronyms, abbreviations and indeed entirely new words. By now there can be no one left on the planet who doesn’t know what “LOL” means, even if David Cameron has only come up to speed relatively recently.[2] Some po-faced commentators will cite the use of expressions like “OMG”, “YOLO” , and “IMHO” as examples of sheer laziness on the part of the users and use them as evidence that today’s teenagers will not be able to cope in the world of work where more formal English will be required, but the truth of the matter is that every generation invents or adopts words and phrases that infuriate their elders and they do so, in part at least, to create a language which acts as a code that their parents cannot break! These same commentators will, I’m sure, have used expressions and words in their youth that similarly exasperated their parents’ generation.

You will be pleased to know that I do not intend exploring the use of the apostrophe in this blog. There is a whole industry out there discussing the use of the apostrophe and at any given moment there will be someone expounding on the subject on radio or television and there are any number of websites devoted to this single piece of punctuation. I do not believe that there is anything I can usefully add to the debate.

Although I hope that I have a reasonable command of English, I accept that I am by no means perfect.[3] I confess to an addiction to commas and a tendency to throw them in, apparently at random, in the hope that they make what I am writing clearer. I pepper them throughout my writing before going back, editing and excising half of them, adding new ones, re-inserting ones I have deleted and generally bewildering myself as to whether or not the ones that remain make a valid contribution.[4] I have therefore sought help by ordering Lynn Truss’s book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” from Amazon. I probably should have done so years ago.

As someone who enjoys the English language, relishes a well turned phrase and hopefully can tell good English from bad, you might expect me to side with those who feel that English is in decline, however I actually think that it is holding up quite well. Yes, it is changing; it is evolving as it has done for centuries and will continue to for centuries to come and I do not have a problem with that. Where I do have a problem however, is with carelessness or laziness, where “have” becomes “of”, “may” becomes “can” or “have” becomes “get.”

Thank you for reading; that’s all I of to say this week, of a good week and I’ll of a new blog for you next Thursday.

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[1] A small confession here. Once, at Los Angeles airport I ordered a coffee at Starbucks with the words “Can I get...” and I can only excuse myself on the grounds that I was using the expression in its native land. I have never used this form of words in the UK.

[2] To my eternal chagrin, I have to admit that the first time I saw this expression I was of a like mind with Mr. Cameron.

[3] My wife will be relieved to hear this; she thinks that I think that I am (perfect, that is).

[4] This article began life with 63 commas; after editing this number became 68. I have no idea whether or not they are all necessary.