# Poor grammar in music **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2007, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537 "2007-09-17T20:46:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/21 "2007-09-17T23:09:05Z")
**elfkin477** , sometimes you just have to let a little ambiguity into your life. It’s like wearing boxers. Let your participial (and other various and sundry) clauses dangle. Also, kill more elephants. It’s good for the soul. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/22 "2007-09-17T23:19:26Z")
The first song that came to mind when I read the thread title: [“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Ain%27t_Seen_Nothing_Yet) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/23 "2007-09-17T23:23:08Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] From TLC, paraphrased: “What gives you the right to write me off on the wall?” Um, girls, those are two phrases, “write someone off” and “off the wall.” Unless you’re talking about someone writing “ME OFF” on a wall, which seems unlikely. [/QUOTE] Or, they could be angry about some unflattering grafitti. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/24 "2007-09-17T23:45:21Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] According to McCartney, it’s “… in which we’re livin’.” [/QUOTE] There is what Sir Paul _claims_, and there is what he _sang_. I got ears. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/25 "2007-09-17T23:52:00Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] There is what Sir Paul _claims_, and there is what he _sang_. I got ears. 😃 [/QUOTE] Well, it ain’t his fault. He’s British, and don’t know how to speak English proper. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/26 "2007-09-17T23:57:56Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] Ah, people clinging to the groundless idea that “less” is incorrect wherever “fewer” is acceptable. I may get to make a descriptivism rant after all. [/QUOTE] Whatchoo talkin’ 'bout? Fewer is used to refer to something countable things like variations or mistakes while less is used for things which cannot be counted. But if you have an alternate viewpoint, I’ll at least listen. (Which is a better response than your tone deserves.) ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/27 "2007-09-18T00:20:47Z")
[QUOTE=Inner Stickler] Whatchoo talkin’ 'bout? Fewer is used to refer to something countable things like variations or mistakes while less is used for things which cannot be counted. But if you have an alternate viewpoint, I’ll at least listen. (Which is a better response than your tone deserves.) [/QUOTE] If my tone came across as a personal insult directed at you, then I apologize for that. However, you have been taught, through no fault of your own, an appallingly widespread but absolutely incorrect fact about the rules of English. Let me quote Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage ([link](http://www.ldc.upenn.edu//myl/llog/MW_LessFewer.pdf) to the relevant portion): [QUOTE=MWCDEU, bolding mine] Here is the rule as it is usually encountered: “fewer” refers to number among things that are counted, and “less” refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured. This rule is simple enough and easy enough to follow. It has only one fault – it is not accurate for all usage. If we were to write the rule from the observation of actual usage, it would be the same for “fewer”: “fewer” does refer to number among things that are counted. However, it would be different for “less”: “less” refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured **and to number among things that are counted. Our amended rule describes the actual usage of the past thousand years or so.** As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on “less”: “This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think ‘Fewer’ would do better. ‘No Fewer than a Hundred’ appears to me not only more elegant than ‘No less than a Hundred’, but strictly proper.” --Baker 1770 Baker’s remarks about fewer express clearly and modestly – “I should think,” “appears to me” – his own taste and preference. **…** The OED shows that “less” has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great – he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin – more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially “less” has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language. After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that “fewer” might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker’s lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe “less” used of countables to be wrong, **though its standardness is easily demonstrated.** [/QUOTE] A lot of examples then follow to back up the assertion that “less” used with countables remains, as it always has been, a perfectly standard usage. So, basically, what we have here is a feature of English that has been thoroughly ordinary for more than a millenium. About two hundred years ago, some guy came along and expressed his own idiosyncratic preferences, but this never really took on with the English speaking public at large, and thus never really became a true rule of English grammar, though it ended up being codified nonetheless in an awful lot of wrongheaded usage guides, the sort which rarely bother to take a glance at reality. (Another choice quote from the excerpt: “This approach is quite common in handbooks and schoolbooks; many pedagogues seem reluctant to share the often complicated facts about English with their students.”) ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/28 "2007-09-18T01:41:38Z")
The song she sang to me. The song she brang to me. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/29 "2007-09-18T02:04:18Z")
I try to be reasonable and descriptivist when it comes to grammar. One song that has always gotten on my nerves, however, is a country song, I think by Travis Tritt (’‘Best of Intentions’’?) that contains the lines, ‘‘But my best laid plans Slipped right through my hands To show my love for you.’’ That can be phrased in way that makes a lot more coherent sense, I think. And someone on the boards recently brought my attention to the abysmal line in Paula Cole’s song ‘‘I Don’t Want to Wait’’ _Open up your morning light and say a little prayer for I_ I don’t care if you were raised by wolves! There is no excuse for that. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/30 "2007-09-18T02:13:03Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] “They said she died easy of a broken heart disease as I listened through the cemetary trees.” The Wallflowers Unless they literally meant she died while he listened it should be reversed “As I listened through the cemetary trees they said she died easy of a broken heart disease.” [/QUOTE] The original version is far better, because he’s revealing the fact that he’s listening sneakily through the trees, a mysterious and evocative image, _after_ the first part of the verse, which makes it more effective. It would have taken some of the mystery and atmosphere out of the line if he had announced that he was listening through the trees right at the beginning of the verse. I always imagined that the narrator is spying on the funeral, hiding in the trees as he listens to the service, rather than having been invited and participating in a formal manner. The revelation of this fact is better suited for the end of the lyric. ---
**Author:** ![Emeria](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@Emeria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emeria)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/31 "2007-09-18T02:32:23Z")
[QUOTE=Birdmonster] Rant rant rant!!! In most cases, bad grammar simply sounds better. “I can’t get no satisfaction” sounds much more appropriate, to me, than “I can not receive any personal fulfillment.” I hyperbolize, of course, but you get the idea. When people start singing with emoticons, we’re in trouble. “Dear Prudence, let me see you Colon dash end parenthesis” [/QUOTE] Not quite the same, but it’s been done, c. 1992 (Dan Baird): I love you period Do you love me question mark please, please exclamation point I wanna hold you in parentheses ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/32 "2007-09-18T03:20:21Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] From TLC, paraphrased: “What gives you the right to write me off on the wall?” Um, girls, those are two phrases, “write someone off” and “off the wall.” Unless you’re talking about someone writing “ME OFF” on a wall, which seems unlikely. [/QUOTE] Personally I find that to be a pretty clever play with words. Not only did he write her off, but he did it “on the wall.” It’s a metaphor emphasizing how insensitive the guy was, as though writing about her on a (presumable) bathroom wall. You don’t get it? Anyway, I’ve heard lots of examples of such grammar, but I don’t really get upset about it. It’s just pop music, not a university thesis. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/33 "2007-09-18T03:36:44Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] The original version is far better, because he’s revealing the fact that he’s listening sneakily through the trees, a mysterious and evocative image, _after_ the first part of the verse, which makes it more effective. It would have taken some of the mystery and atmosphere out of the line if he had announced that he was listening through the trees right at the beginning of the verse. [/QUOTE] Exactly. While it may be poor grammar, it makes for better lyrics. Song writers are more concerned with things like rhyme, phrase stress, prominence and general lyric effect, than what their high school English teacher told them. As long as it sounds like something a person would actually say, it doesn’t bother me in pop music lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![if6was9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/34 "2007-09-18T06:23:40Z")
My moniker, by Jimi Hendrix. If 6 _were_ 9. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/35 "2007-09-18T06:35:47Z")
A desperately wrong word choice would be Alanis Morisette’s titling of the song **Ironic**. None of the examples of _irony_ in the song are actually examples of irony, just misfortune. ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/36 "2007-09-18T10:59:11Z")
Spandau Ballet in “Only When You Leave”: “In this world, all that I choose has **come** unbearable” - try **become** , guys. Two lines later: “It’s killing me so much”… Who knew there were degrees of being killed? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/37 "2007-09-18T11:10:47Z")
[QUOTE=if6was9] My moniker, by Jimi Hendrix. If 6 _were_ 9. [/QUOTE] I admire that Cathy Dennis included the subjunctive in the lyrics of the fluff tune “Sweet Dreams My LA Ex” that she wrote for pop cutie Rachel Stevens: > [@](#): > > If I were in your shoes, > I’d worry of the effects. > You’ve had your say, but now it’s my turn: > Sweet dreams my LA ex. ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/38 "2007-09-18T12:59:34Z")
[QUOTE=buns3000] Spandau Ballet in “Only When You Leave”: “In this world, all that I choose has **come** unbearable” - try **become** , guys. [/QUOTE] In fact, it is still nonsensical with my suggested change. Damn you, Gaudere! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![xnylder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbce88/32.png) [@xnylder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xnylder)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/39 "2007-09-18T14:02:31Z")
Former schoolteacher Sting’s grammar is usually impeccable, which is why I cringe at this one from “Mad About You”: \* “And though I claim dominions, over all I see…”\* “Claim dominion”. No “s”. Argh. ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2007, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537/40 "2007-09-18T14:18:49Z")
System of a Down’s “Lonely Day” refrain: It’s the most loneliest day of my life. (repeated several times) It’s enough to make me change the radio station. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-grammar-in-music/419537.md?page=3)