If you want to blame someone for screwing up the English language, then you had better start with Chaucer, and he’s a rather difficult target to bring down, if you know what I’m screamin’. “Ax” and “axe” for “ask” appear throughout the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. But I know what you mean.
One of my English professors (educated at Hahvahd, no less) has examples, which he considers witty, about the number of participles that one can tack on the end of a sentence while having the sentence remain perfectly intelligible to a fluent speaker of English. For example, a kid at bedtime:
Dad, why’d you bring that book you already read to me out of up for?
First, Kinsey, I went to the College of Charleston in lovely, sunny Charleston SC. So, CoC is where I went to
college at, hunnybunchkins
(whisper)
Ahem…Disciple of Alf…may I see you in the corner
for just a moment?
Over here…
(/end whisper)
Not to nitpick, feel free to correct one of my posts as well, but I just CANT LET IT GO!!!
The use of the word “irregardless” is one of the top instigators of linguistic rage. I mean it’s right up there
with “nucular” as far as I’m concerned.
Please forever PURGE that odious not-even-a-word from your vocab, replace it with a nice huggable “regardless”, go forth, and sin no more.
I believe irregardless is a real variant, if not considered—as the Brits might say—common or vulgar.
At any rate, the one that gets to me the most is using “says” in the past tense.
“So then Mary says, ‘What, are you kiddin me?’ And I says, 'No way, Mary, sthe God’s honest truth!”
GAH!
Also note the “s’the” there; “it is the” also receives a fair amount of abuse. I think “sthe” should just become its own word, though I’m not sure it would calm me any.
I, too, dislike “go” variants for “say” variants. I also get upset about “like” for “say” variants as well: can’t even get tense in with “like”! e.g— “…And then Mary was like, ‘Whatever!’” as a translation for both, “…And then Mary said, ‘Whatever!’” and “…And then Mary says, ‘Whatever!’” Argh… also the use of present “says” for “will say.”
I just hate the words people substitute for the action of speech, basically. I think that sums it up.
Kinsey, as far as I’ve enver known, one uses “me” as objects (usually of propositions) and “I” for subjects.
It happened because of me.
I made it happen.
See?
And then you have “myself” which is “simply” a pronoun. (I say simply because the word has so many darned uses it isn’t worth getting into). You can usually replace “myself” with “I” but “me” isn’t the same thing. If you go to Merriam Webster you’ll see that they really all sort of blend together with no simple rules. Damn it! The French we ain’t.
Actually, the rules are quite simple. You can never use “I” and “myself” interchangably, for reasons stated below.
“I” is the first-person singular subject pronoun.
“Me” is the first-person singular object pronoun.
“Myself” is the first-person singular reflexive pronoun. Reflexive pronouns refer to the subject of the clause in which they occur.
“Myself” should be used only when “I” is used in the same clause.
I gave him the money myself. I have quite a collection of Pokemon cards myself. I, myself, have occasionally enjoyed a bit of port.
but
I hit him, and he hit me back.
In this case, we use “me” the second time because it is in a different clause than “I”.
"Irregardless", IMHO, is a confusion of the words “irrespective” and “regardless.” It is called Nonstandard by my Webster’s Dictionary.
Whatever it is, it literally translates as the opposite of “regardless,” so it’s misused no matter how you look at it. It’s similar to the phrase “I could care less,” by which people mean “I couldn’t care less.”
Hey, now that’s something up with which I will not put!
But I have plenty of examples of interesting takes on the English language.
One co-worker uses “whenever” to mean when.
“Whenever I was in Florida last summer, I went to Disneyworld.”
“Whenever I bought this dress, I bought shoes to match.”
I also have a friend who uses “desire” to mean everything from want to wish to request.
“I desire you call me back later.”
“I desire we order a pizza.”
Of course I speak with what has been described as a Northern California accent. There are no “b’s” in “prolly”, and only one “r” in foward.
I remember when I first came on this board there was a thread which mentioned the NorCal accent and quoted a ditty from Berkeley:
Oh, they had to carry Harry to the ferry
Oh, they had to carry Harry to the shore
Oh, they had to carry Harry to the ferry
'Cause Harry couldn’t carry anymore
There was some amusement at the idea that to a Northern Californian, this actually rhymed. I had to sing it dozens of times before I grasped why in most of the country it doesn’t.
My mother-in-law worshes the dishes. She used to live in Worshington, where my sister-in-law got lost because without the familiar mountains around her she became “disorientated”.
My mother thinks you should always use “she and I” and doesn’t understand that when the phrase is the object it becoms “her and me”. Even though I explained it to her at least once a year for over a decade. I’ve quit trying to explain it to her.
These are things up with which I can put (gramatically correct but confusing), but when my wife tells me she could Varely read the road signs because it was so dark, I have to correct her.
I hate it when people say they have two choices. No. A choice is the act of choosing. You have one choice to make between two options.
My personal favorite piece of bad grammer is “Don’t make no never-mind to me” when I have no preference for either option.
I need a linguist to explain – especially because Harry, carry, and ferry all rhyme to me. But for a lot of people, Harry and carry have a short “a” sound like in cat, while ferry has a short “e” sound, like in bed.
Think about marry and merry. Do they sound alike? Can you make them sound different by pronouncing marry with an “a” sound and merry with an “e” sound? That’s the sound difference that makes Harry and ferry not rhyme.
Thanks, SpoilerVirgin. Now my husband thinks I am totally nuts…sitting here in front of the computer mumbling, “Harry, carry, Harry, carry, with an ‘a’ like cat…ferry, ferry, ferry, with an ‘e’ like bed…marry, merry, marry, merry…merry? marry? merry?”
Like I said in my first post, I spent hours singing the stupid song before I started to understand what the problem was. If I’m not careful, it will take me another two days to get it out of my head again.
Now my husband thinks I am totally nuts…sitting here in front of the computer mumbling, “Harry, carry, Harry, carry, with an ‘a’ like cat…ferry, ferry, ferry, with an ‘e’ like bed…marry, merry, marry, merry…merry? marry? merry?”