By Richard Firsten Retired ESOL Teacher, Teacher-Trainer, Columnist
PART 1
Now that I’m retired from teaching ESOL, I have the luxury to sit back and observe things at my leisure. Having been in the field of ESOL for the better part of four decades, one thing I like to observe and muse about is how many items in English are now accepted or may one day be accepted as standard language that weren’t “back in the day,” as they now say. I’d like to share some of my observations with you and ruminate a bit about a few of them. I’m going to have some fun pointing out why some items don’t seem logical and why others seem totally unnecessary to me. But the long and short of it is that these items are commonly used by native speakers every single day, and that’s what I think needs discussing.
Almost all the examples I’ll be giving come directly from educated native speakers, which is what I find most interesting, that educated speakers are saying what they’re saying. It used to be that many of these utterances were considered uneducated or nonstandard, even substandard – but oh, how times have changed!
So what’s my motive for bringing these points to your attention? It’s that as ESOL teachers or others involved in teaching or learning English, you’ll want to keep up on what’s going on in the language. Not all textbooks or teacher reference books deal with the latest developments in English that have come to my attention, items that used to be frowned upon, but aren’t frowned upon anymore. Being aware of such things will help keep what is taught and what is learned as accurate as possible. And I have to admit that I just think it’s a lot of fun to catch what’s going on in the language and make others aware of these things if they aren’t already.
There’s plenty of material to discuss, which is why I’m going to divide it into six parts for “Teacher Talk.” So let’s plunge together right into Part 1.
Bits and Pieces Already Accepted in the Language
Redundancy is so Redundant!
English speakers – and speakers of other languages, too – just love redundancy, so I think it’ll be fun to review some of the redundancies that have become part of modern, standard English.
- One such redundancy – which you may never have thought of as a redundancy at all – is the vestigial conjugation ending in the 3rd person singular form of verbs in the simple present. What am I talking about? Well, that darn -s or -es like in he/she/it lives or he/she/it goes. Do we need those verb endings in this tense? Of course not! From the days of Anglo-Saxon to modern times, we’ve gotten rid of the other endings we used to have on verbs in the simple present (e.g., thou livest), but we held on to this one. Strange, isn’t it? But there it is. It’s redundant because if we say he live or she go, with the subject right there, it’s just as clear as you live or they go, making that final –s and –es superfluous. The subject that goes with the verb tells us all the grammatical information we need, so the subject plus one of those endings is a built-in redundancy that we all accept, even though it’s illogical. Will that silly –s or –es fall off one day? Only time will tell.
- Then there’s the kind of redundancy in which we repeat a word or use synonyms together to emphasize meaning:
- a very, very interesting story
- a tiny little insect bite
- a great big house
- my whole entire life
- not for one single moment
- the honest truth
Redundancies like these are quite accepted and a regular occurrence in the language, and I have to admit that they make such phrases more fun to say and listen to. The last one may be questionable as far as its acceptance goes, but it’s still commonly said.
- Here’s another redundancy – one of my favorites – that’s so common, most people don’t even think about how silly it really is:
- I like tuna fish sandwiches.
- I never developed a taste for codfish.
We know that tuna and cod are different species of fish, don’t we? Then why do we need to say fish? We’re not even consistent in doing this. We don’t say salmon fish or red snapper fish, so why say tuna fish and codfish? An unnecessary redundancy, right?
Ah, but what about swordfish? That’s fine, actually. It’s not a redundancy to say fish in this case, because without it, you’re talking about a sword and not a kind of fish, of course – and that won’t work.
Moving right along, we can find quite a number of redundancies that at one time or another were considered poorly spoken language, but now seem to be accepted as standard English. Here are some examples. I’ve mentioned one or two of these in previous contributions to “Teacher Talk,” but they’re worth repeating:
- I don’t believe him, and this is the reason why.
- That’s the reason why I was afraid to tell you the truth.
I remember my English teachers in junior high and high school having fits if any students said or wrote these two words together. They’d point out how redundant the phrase is. You can say this is the reason or you can say this is why, but putting the two together is really taking redundancy to another level – although it’s been so commonly said for so very long that it seems to have become accepted as proper English. Just about everybody uses this redundancy nowadays.
- The reason I cursed at him was because I was so angry.
Because is a redundancy when partnered with the reason. Because means “the reason (for something),” and that’s why it’s redundant. It wouldn’t be redundant to say The reason I cursed at him was that I was so angry or I cursed at him because I was so angry, but here’s another redundancy that English speakers use all the time.
And, for the fun of it, we can take all three words (reason, why, and because) one step further and combine them all into one sentence as many native speakers actually do: The reason why I cursed at him was because I was so angry.
- They’re going to return back home shortly.
- She returned the wallet back to its owner.
The verb return means “come back,” “go back,” or “give back,” so saying back in these two cases is totally redundant and totally unnecessary.
- To use an ATM machine, you have to know your PIN number.
- Before we repossess a car, we always check the VIN number to make sure it’s the vehicle we want.
How often do you hear these phrases or say them yourself? The M in ATM means “machine,” so when people say an ATM machine, they’re really saying “an automatic teller machine machine.”
The same is true for PIN. The N means “number,” so when people say PIN number, they’re actually saying “personal identification number number.”
And, of course, the same is true for VIN, which stands for “vehicle identification number.” So once more, people who say the VIN number are really saying “the vehicle identification number number.” Wouldn’t it be nice if people just said ATM, PIN, and VIN? But of course, they don’t, they don’t.
In Part 2, we’ll be looking at more surprising bits and pieces that are used all the time now in English, so stay tuned.
PART 2
More Bits and Pieces Already Accepted in the Language
- The following have already made a niche for themselves in the language, and if you go by what descriptivists say, they’re considered acceptable in informal language:
There’s been endless books written about the Titanic.
Where’s the bargains in this flea market?
Here’s the files you asked for.
There was lots of lights we could see coming out of the woods.
There’s been some problems with starting the business.
The problem is that now it seems just about everybody uses these five in every kind of situation, informal or formal. In fact, at this rate, I won’t be surprised if there are, there were, there have been; where are; and here are just about disappear altogether from usage.
- We told him to never do that again.
I’ve told them to always use the back door for deliveries.
People getting divorced always have motives to not like their spouses.
The traditional rule for the three sentences above, based in large degree on the dictates of Bishop Robert Lowth in 18th century England, has been that you should never split an infinitive, and this rule was upheld for the most part in educated speech a generation ago. You were only supposed to say . . .
-We told them never to do that again.
-I’ve told them always to use the back door for deliveries.
-People getting divorced always have motives not to like their spouses.
But Robert Lowth, who had a great deal of influence at the British court for some reason and therefore with the upper crust of British society at the time, was actually basing his ideas on what he thought “good grammar” was by looking to classical Latin for inspiration. That’s not realistic since it really doesn’t work to impose the grammar of a Latinate language onto that of a Germanic language, of which English is one. Sorry, Bishop Lowth, but it’s actually fine – and quite an efficient way of phrasing something – to split infinitives, just as it’s now considered fine to end a sentence with a preposition. So these are things that we don’t need to worry about.
- Let’s review the results real quick.
I just love fresh baked bread, don’t you?
In my time, the form of these three words as they appear in these sentences would have been considered no-no’s, and teachers would have corrected them with really quickly and freshly. There was a time in English, however, when the grammar of these words in such sentences was considered perfectly fine. In the 18th century, for instance, it was not uncommon to hear lots of what we call flat adverbs, adverbs that don’t have the typical –ly ending. Of course you know some that are commonly used, such as hard (They work hard) and fast (He can run fast). Fresh in the third example above is fine, too, since it’s another flat adverb. (Are you getting a bit frustrated or exasperated at this point? I can sympathize!)
In American English, real is now accepted in informal speech and even in informal writing as a synonym for very (e.g., She’s a real good worker). But, from what I gather, it’s still not accepted in formal speech or formal writing. I’ve observed, however, that the boundary between formal and informal language seems to be getting more obscure. On many occasions I’ve heard the use of real, meaning “very,” even in quite formal situations.
At any rate, the list of what most consider to be acceptable flat adverbs has shrunk a great deal since the 18th century, but you’ll still hear flat adverbs pop up here and there. If a speaker chooses to use the regular adverb form with the –ly ending (really, quickly, freshly), that’s fine, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with flat adverbs – just as long as they’re accepted as flat adverbs.
- I think this place is very unique.
These are among the most unique animals in this part of the world.
The adjective unique means “one of a kind,” “the only one.” It’s not a gradable adjective with such meanings, so some people feel that the intensifier very, the comparative more, and the superlative the most shouldn’t be used with it. They say that either something is unique or it isn’t unique.
Some people argue, however, that in informal English, unique has come to mean “remarkable” or “unusual.” These are indeed gradable ideas, so they claim that it’s okay to use very, more, and the most with unique. What’s happened, however, is that you can hear these combinations (very unique / more unique / the most unique) all the time, even in formal language. Once again it seems that the boundary between formal and informal has become quite blurred, socially as well as linguistically.
- It’s become very common to hear native speakers say person X and I when person X and the speaker are not only the compound subject of a sentence, but the compound object as well:
-A couple of weeks ago, my producer and I received a letter from him.
-Just three weeks ago, he sent a letter to my producer and I.
-Helen and I would love to have you over for dinner.
-You should come visit Helen and I when you get a chance.
It’s thought that this is due to hypercorrection or the misconception that it “sounds more educated” when, in fact, it’s just the opposite. In fact, Betty Azar has dealt with this phenomenon in one of her grammar texts.
This misused form of the personal pronoun I isn’t put in the object form (me) when it’s part of this compound object, but it always becomes me as the object when it stands alone: I would love to have you over for dinner. / You should come visit me when you get a chance. Nobody would ever say You should come visit I when you get a chance!
But there’s something else going on that’s related to this phenomenon which we’ll take a look at when we get to Part 6, entitled “More Trends in the Language.”
PART 3
Silly and Illogical – but still Commonly Used – Bits and Pieces
In Part 2 of this series, we took a look at some things in English which, although considered ungrammatical by conservative language users, have nevertheless become commonly used features nowadays. At least they aren’t silly or illogical in a common-sense way of looking at things.
Now, however, let’s take a little time to check out some elements of English that really are silly or illogical if you step back and think about them objectively, even though they, too, have become standard features in the language. Here are examples of things that educated speakers say and write.
- They say they’ll try and get here before sunset.
I know you try and save some money every month for your kid’s college fund.
Try and is a very commonly used phrase that goes way, way back to who knows how long ago. But if you dissect it, you can see on different levels why it’s really very silly and illogical. In the two examples I’ve cited, they’ll try and get here and you try and save money, my question is, try WHAT? If it’s “getting here,” shouldn’t the speaker just say they’ll try to get here or they’ll try getting here? And in the other case, shouldn’t the speaker just say he or she knows that the other person tries to save or tries saving some money every month? In these versions I’ve suggested, we clearly see what those people will try: “to get here” and “to save some money.” But that try and get here and try and save money really throw me for a loop. It seems that they’re trying to accomplish two things, with the first of those things simply not mentioned.. For me it just doesn’t work, it’s illogical, it’s silly – but for many, many native speakers, it’s fine. Go figure.
To add to this silliness, can you use this phrase try and with he, she,or it? Let’s try to do so: She says she’ll try and get here … That’s okay. / I know she tries and saves some money every month. Oops! That’s not okay. It doesn’t sound right. Hmm … How about I know she tries and save some money every month. Nope. That doesn’t sound right either. What’s going on, you ask? What’s going on is that we don’t use the phrase try and with a 3rd person singular subject in any form of the present, just in the future. How strange is that!
And if you want strange, here’s more strange: You don’t use this phrase in the past either: They tried and got here … No, that doesn’t work. I know you tried and saved some money … Forget it! If you stop and think about it, try and really is silly and illogical on many levels.
Now, what about saying stop and as I’ve just done (If you stop and think about it …)? Why is stop okay when try isn’t? It’s okay because I really am talking about stopping some activity in order to think about what’s being discussed: If you stop (reading this blog entry) and think about it (what we’re discussing), try and really is silly.
Who would think you could say so much about a two-word phrase like try and! Well, it’s a standard phrase in English now, so here’s one of many great examples in which silliness wins out in language.
- This show was pre-recorded in front of a live audience. (They’re talking about a TV sitcom.)
I love this statement, which I first remember being said at the start of each episode of the hit comedy All in the Family back in the 1960s.
First off, we have a very silly statement. The show was pre-recorded? Really? Doesn’t that mean that the show was recorded before it was recorded? What?? Of course that’s not what they mean to say, but that’s what it means. And this statement is still being used.
Second, when they say in front of a live audience, of course they mean that during the show, you’ll hear the reactions of real people sitting in the audience, not canned laughter. But it does sound very funny. They wouldn’t record the show in front of a dead audience, would they? All they really need to say is This show was recorded in front of an audience.
- The last showing of this movie on Saturdays starts at 12:00 a.m.
The office always closes for lunch at 12:00 p.m.
These two are silly because 12 o’clock is neither a.m. nor p.m. When you say 12:00, it’s either midnight or noon. The designations a.m. and p.m. start at 12:01, but these two silly time phrases are commonly used.
- My name is Dr. Lynn Sousa.
His name was Captain John Walker.
I think commonly heard sentences like these are silly because Doctor and Captain are not part of those people’s names. I guarantee that you won’t find those titles on their birth certificates! What should be said is My name is Lynn Sousa. / His name was John Walker. If there really is a need to mention their titles, what should be said is I’m Dr. Lynn Sousa. / He was Captain John Walker.
- It’s become acceptable to use they, them, or their instead of the 3rd person singular forms when it’s not known if somebody is male or female. For example,
If somebody leaves their valuables inside their car in the store parking lot,the management is not responsible for any break-ins or thefts.
In this case, somebody could be a man or woman, so instead of using the awkward he/she and his/her, it’s become acceptable to use their just to simplify things. (Of course this problem could easily be avoided most of the time by simply using a plural subject (If people leave their valuables …), but almost nobody thinks of doing this.
However, take a look at the following.
- The speaker knows she’s talking about a man:
This is someone who really knows their stuff. (It should be his.)
- The speaker knows he’s talking about a woman:
How could somebody say such a thing in front of their six-year-old daughter? It should be her.)
- The speaker is aware he’s talking about an all-woman’s team:
Every member of the relay team did their job perfectly. (Correct word: her.)
- The caller realizes she’s talking about another woman:
“911. What’s the nature of your call?”
“Yes, I have someone here who’s been physically abused by their husband. I think she needs medical assistance.” (The right choice: her.)
- The speaker is looking directly at a father when he says this, and he’s referring to the father:
I understand a father wanting to protect their child, but … (It should be his.)
It seems that the use of the 3rd person plural has become so common that even when the speaker knows that the somebody is a man or woman, the 3rd person plural form is still used. I think that’s bizarre! It’s commonplace, but bizarre!
- Do you mind if …? / Would you mind if …?
These phrases are quickly losing their meaning. More and more native speakers think they mean “May I …? or “Can I …?” instead of their real meaning of “Will it bother you if …?” or “Is it a problem if …?” Listen to how native speakers respond to requests that start off with one of these phrases and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll hear people respond by saying something like “Sure” or “Okay” instead of “No” or “Not at all.”
If somebody asks, “Would you mind if I took a photo of your dog?” the traditional response is “No, not at all” when the speaker means it’s okay. That’s because the speaker is really communicating, “No, it won’t bother me at all” or “It’s not at all a problem.” What you’ll hear instead is “Sure,” which actually means they’re saying “Sure, it will be a problem.” But that probably won’t stop Sure or Okay from eventually becoming standard answers to these two questions when their real meanings are lost completely at some point in the future.
PART 4
Items in English that May Stick. Only Time will Tell
There are lots of really quirky things going on in English these days, and I have a hunch that some of them will become standard parts of the language as time goes by simply because they’re so commonly heard and read. So when will we be teaching them? That’s an interesting question. I wonder what your take on this is.
At any rate, here are just a few examples I’ve noted over quite some time. And remember that all of these examples come from educated native speakers:
- Change in Stative Verbs
Many stative verbs, which are traditionally used only in the simple forms of the tenses and aspects, are now being used in the progressive form more and more often, perhaps signaling a significant change in this area of grammar:
- It’s close to the end of the game, so for sure they’re not wanting their opponents to get any more points.
- We weren’t believing any of what he was claiming.
- The kids are loving their new board game. Look how into it they are.
- She’s having to look for a second job now to make ends meet.
- What they’re needing is more money for a down payment.
- I guess I just wasn’t understanding where you were going with that story.
- Where did he go? I’m not seeing him.
- The had in the phrase had better is just about disappearing:
- You better read the fine print before signing.
- He better not try to do that by himself.
- Please reference the below article for more information.
The word below is not an adjective; it’s either a preposition or an adverb, and in this sentence, it’s an adverb. That means it should follow the article: Please reference the article below for more information.
By the way, the same holds true for above: Please read the instructions above to see how this is done. I’ve come across the mistaken positioning of the adverbs below and above quite often: Please read the above instructions to see how this is done.
- It’s becoming more and more common to hear the object form of personal pronouns used as the subject of a sentence. Here are some examples:
- Him and my brother did it.
- She claimed Kathleen told her the truth when her and Kathleen were talking the other day.
- Me and her were the only ones at home at the time.
- Her and I left the party early.
- Them and their parents were told to make appointments to see the principal.
You’d think the sentences above were all uttered by uneducated native speakers, right? Well, surprise, surprise! Some were spoken by highly educated people – one even by a teacher!
Notice the two variations of the same subject? Look again at the third and fourth examples: Me and her / Her and I. Of course the traditional form should be She and I in both sentences. I find things like this fascinating!
- It was just awful! We drug all those heavy potting soil bags to the car, and not one employee helped us.
- After the successful attack, the wolf spider drug its prey into its burrow to feed on it.
Just as I’ve cited the strange use of object personal pronouns used as the subjects of sentences, you might also think that the two examples here showing the use of drug as the past tense of drag were uttered by uneducated speakers. Well, once again I have to say surprise, surprise! Both were said by quite educated native speakers, and I have found that more and more people, especially in the American Midwest and South, seem to use drug as the past of drag instead of dragged.
What I find quite remarkable about this is that it goes against the natural tendency of English to regularize verbs and nouns. For example, dive > dove/dived; leap > leapt/leaped; plead > pled/pleaded. In this case, oddly enough, just the opposite has happened. A regular verb has been made into an irregular verb: drag > drug/dragged.
At the moment, I don’t believe this alternate past tense form is accepted – at least not in any dictionaries I’ve looked at – but perhaps drug will one day be an acceptable alternative for dragged just as dived is an acceptable alternative for dove.
- In each of the following sentences and news headlines, you’ll note how the names of countries have been used where their corresponding adjectives should have been employed:
- Life is dangerous in many Mexico towns because of battles between drug cartels.
- Thousands of refugees have been streaming over the Lebanon/Syria border into Lebanon.
- There will be two Great Britain divers in the semifinals in platform diving.
- China Wedding Party’s Cars Plunge into River
- Egypt Pyramids Discovered On Google Earth, Researcher Says
In each example above, there was absolutely no reason to use the name of the country when the adjectival form should have been used, but this seems to be a growing trend among journalists even in spoken English. We do have adjectives for all the countries listed above. For example: Life is dangerous in many Mexican towns because … / Thousands of refugees have been streaming over the Lebanese/Syrian border into Lebanon / There will be two British divers in the semifinals …
What strikes me as so odd about this strange usage is that none of the people who wrote these headlines or sentences would ever write something like Drought Suffocating America Midwest. If they think that America sounds odd here, why do they think all these other misuses are acceptable? Very strange indeed! In short, since an adjective exists to identify each of these countries, it should be used, but we’ll have to see if this trend takes hold.
- What? Are these somebody’s teeth marks on this apple? Yuck!
- For teeth whitening, dentists recommend a limited number of over-the-counter products.
I’m sure you’ve heard phrases like these. Do they bother you? If they don’t, to be consistent, shouldn’t you say teethpaste instead of toothpaste and an ants hill instead of an ant hill? Whether we have a compound noun (two nouns written together as one word to create a new word) or a noun adjunct (the same as a compound noun, but with the words written separately), the first element always functions as an adjective to describe the head noun (the second element), and because it functions as an adjective, it’s usually singular, even though it may represent something plural. That’s why we say tooth marks and not teeth marks; footprints and not feetprints. And keeping with this, you’d expect to hear tooth whitening.
I said that the first element is usually singular, but that’s not always the case. We do have exceptions for words that aren’t commonly used in the singular. For example, when it comes to arms meaning “weapons,” we say the arms race because we don’t normally put arms in the singular.
In my next installment, we’ll look at more quirky items in English that ESOL teachers may be teaching one of these days as standard elements of the language.
PART 5
More Items in English that May Stick. Only Time will Tell.
In Part 4 of this series, I presented some quirky things that are happening in English these days, things which I have a hunch may become standard parts of the language or accepted alternative forms in the language as time goes by simply because they’re so commonly spoken, heard, and read by educated native users of English. These quirky things may just be aberrations, but if they’re not, we English teachers may have to accept that they will very likely be taught at some point in the future. Here are some more of these oddities that perhaps won’t be considered so odd down the road.
- An interesting observation I’ve made is that even though they’re referring to time, many native speakers use where – which signifies a location, of course – instead of using when, which signifies a time. To me it’s a very odd occurrence, and I can’t figure out why it’s so common. Here are a number of examples:
- There was a moment where I knew that I couldn’t do it on my own.
- There were instances where she just seemed to drift off into a daydream
- Did there come a time where you believed he had done it?
- It happened about ten years ago where I found myself wondering why …
- One test is called a hand drop. It’s where a neurologist takes the patient’s hand and …
- I’m lucky to be in a time where more people champion human rights than ever before.
In each and every example above, it’s clear that when is the appropriate word to use since it deals with time as do all the words preceding where in these sentences. I don’t know if this use of where will ever be considered okay, but that doesn’t mean it won’t continue to be commonly heard.
- What follows is nothing new, but the question is, will reflexive pronouns eventually be acceptable in this usage? It’s important to reiterate here that all of the following examples are direct quotes from educated native speakers.
So what seems to be happening? This use of a reflexive pronoun as the subject or object in place of the personal pronoun seems to apply only to 1st person and 2nd person, both singular and plural:
- “How are you, Al?” “Fine, thanks. And yourself?”
- The only two people who know the answer are John and myself.
- Everybody knows, myself included, that we all need …
- So, if I get this correctly, Patrick, your father, and yourself were all there, correct?
- There’s greater intelligence in the universe than ourselves.
- Myself, Dirk, and his grandfather decided to fly together to Houston.
- We’re going to the company picnic this Saturday. What about yourselves?
- The cop gave parking tickets to Ann and myself. We hadn’t noticed the no-parking sign.
- All the neighbors are being invited, including yourselves.
Perhaps you feel that this use of these reflexive pronouns has a place in conversational English. You may feel that such a use fills a desire on the part of the speakers to give more stature to themselves or to the person(s) being addressed. This may very well have its roots in the colloquial habit in Irish English of using himself and herself to show that a person of high rank is being discussed:
“Is Himself having dinner at home tonight?” asked the cook.
“I’ll have to check,” replied the butler.
But the following is an example that just demonstrates plain bad grammar – and this utterance was made by an educated speaker, mind you! Even though you can hear native speakers make this error, I don’t think it will ever become standard in the language:
They’ll just have to look up the property taxes themself.
- Our house’s heating system needs to be revamped.
The average income’s decline in the US shows the recession is still a big threat.
Serious Problem Found in Cars’ Trunks
There was a time when we were taught that we should use the –s genitive for higher life forms (human beings and most animals) and for time expressions like today, last week, next month. We were also taught that there were pat phrases that used the –s genitive like your money’s worth and a stone’s throw from here and nouns that are commonly anthropomorphized like ships and celestial bodies: the Titanic’s hull, the moon’s gravitational pull. For inanimate objects and lower life forms like insects, we were taught to use the of genitive (e.g., the heating system of our house; the decline of the average income in the US). And, in other cases, we were taught to use noun adjuncts rather than any genitive form: car trunks; kitchen cabinets.
Now, it seems, anything goes. People use the –s genitive on just about any noun, as you can see in the examples that started off this section.
- I want them to pay for the damages they caused to my apartment.
It used to be that damages referred to money awarded in court at the end of a law suit to a plaintiff for having suffered some kind of loss or injury caused by a defendant. But when referring to harm done to property, it’s been traditional to say damage, a singular, uncountable noun.
Well, that’s changing rapidly. More and more native speakers now say damages when referring to harm done to various parts of an object or various incidents of harm done to a property. Even judges are using damages instead of damage for harm done to different parts of something such as an apartment.
- It was so fun!
This is interesting. When fun is used adjectivally, it traditionally comes before the noun it describes (e.g., It was a fun party. / We had a fun time at the beach yesterday).
But this kind of adjective is not used after a copula like be, so when we say It was fun, fun is actually an uncountable noun in this case. That’s why it’s not traditional to use so before it because we use so + an adjective, not a noun: so amusing, so entertaining, so enjoyable – but not so fun. If we want to use an uncountable noun like fun, we need to employ such: It was such fun. This traditional rule seems to be changing rapidly, though, for many native speakers.
- Here’s another grammatical form that seems to be going through a transformation among native speakers, educated and uneducated alike. The past perfect, which has traditionally been used for the past subjunctive in imaginary sentences (She wishes she hadn’t flunked her midterm exam) and the past subjunctive in imaginary conditional sentences (If she hadn’t flunked the midterm, her parents wouldn’t have restricted her social activities so much), is being replaced with the simple past, which has traditionally been used for the present subjunctive in imaginary contexts (I wish I were rich. / If I were rich, I’d buy a castle in Ireland). So the simple past is being used in the subjunctive clause in both present and past imaginary sentences. Here are examples:
- He just wishes he knew more than he did when he made that decision.
- If Babe Ruth wasn’t a pitcher at the beginning of his baseball career, he would probably have hit over a thousand homeruns.
- If there wasn’t a firearm on the scene, tensions wouldn’t have escalated so much.
- Do you feel you wouldn’t be here today if you didn’t have the pepper spray to protect you from that bear?
- If we didn’t smell the gas leak when we did, the whole house could have blown up.
The currently correct grammatical version of these sentences is:
- He just wishes he had known more than he did when he made that decision.
- If Babe Ruth hadn’t been a pitcher at the beginning of his baseball career, he would probably have hit over a thousand homeruns.
- If there hadn’t been a firearm on the scene, tensions wouldn’t have escalated so much.
- Do you feel you wouldn’t be here today if you hadn’t had the pepper spray to protect you from that bear?
- If we hadn’t smelled the gas leak when we did, the whole house could have blown up.
PART 6
More Trends in the Language
Well, here we are at the end of my series on observations I’ve made about changes that I see happening in English. Some of them will probably become permanent and end up being taught as either the grammatically correct forms or acceptable alternatives to traditional forms. A few, in fact, are already considered acceptable alternatives in some dictionaries and grammar books. Perhaps I should have titled this “The Heads-Up Series” since my goal has been to give you, our intrepid English teachers, a heads-up on what you may be teaching in the not-too-distant future. At any rate, let’s take a look at a few more changes I’ve observed.
Lay and Lie
Okay, my hardliners, in case you’re not aware of it, these days it’s considered acceptable to use either lay or lie as the intransitive verb meaning to be in a horizontal or reclined position. The traditional distinction between the two, with lay being transitive (When I set the table, I lay a napkin on top of each dinner plate) and lie being intransitive (They got sunburned because they were lying on the beach too long) is a thing of the past, for all intents and purposes. So you can lay a napkin on a plate and lay on the beach to sunbathe. It’s interesting, though, that this change is a one-way street; it doesn’t work in reverse. You won’t hear people say A mason lies bricks or chickens lie eggs, will you?
· The Illogic of Less
I’m sure that everybody has heard all sorts of native English speakers say phrases like less calories and less accidents. Traditionally, of course, we’re supposed to use less with uncountable nouns (and adverbs, too, for that matter). As for countable nouns, we should say fewer calories and fewer accidents. Well, more and more I hear and read phrases in which less is used with countable nouns instead of fewer.
But keep in mind the basic forms and comparative forms of these words (little → less; few → fewer) and now let’s see how illogically less is being used by more and more people. We see that less is the comparative form of little, so we have little money → less money, both of which speak to how much money is being discussed. In keeping with this, if it becomes acceptable to say less accidents, doesn’t that mean we should also be able to say little accidents if we’re not making a comparison, but are only talking about how many accidents? Of course not! We can use little accidents when speaking about accidents that aren’t serious, but little accidents doesn’t mean “fewer accidents.” We can say few accidents → fewer accidents, but not little accidents → less accidents the way we can say little money → less money. You get it, I’m sure.
· June WHAT? April WHAT??
I don’t know how long ago this started, but over the past few years I’ve noticed more and more native speakers saying things like June five or April twenty-two instead of June fifth or April twenty-second. When and why people started using ordinal numbers instead of cardinal numbers in dates is beyond me. At first I thought it might be for the sake of clarity, to make sure the listener doesn’t confuse the date that the speaker is saying, but that’s not true at all. None of the nine ordinal numbers in question sounds like any of the others. So get ready for the possibility that you’ll have to tweak that rule we always teach about dates only being made with ordinal numbers.
· Mom
Here’s a prediction: The word mother may disappear from common usage, at least in American English. I can hear you saying “Huh??” but just hear me out. Even in formal situations, people are using mom much more often than mother. Here are three examples:
- “I’d like to introduce a fellow mom, Michelle Obama!” said the speaker who introduced the First Lady at the last Democratic National Convention. Not a fellow mother, but “a fellow mom.”
- And during her speech at the convention, Mrs. Obama said, “At the end of the day, my most important title is still ‘Mom in Chief.’ ” Not Mother in Chief, but “Mom in Chief.”
- Judge in Juvenile Court addressing a 15-year-old defendant: “Is that your mom?”
If you’re skeptical about mother possibly taking a back seat to mom and disappearing from common usage, just start listening to how many times you hear mom compared to mother. I’ve heard mom used in all sorts of situations, formal and informal, and by all sorts of people – but not mother.
I think there’s something psychological going on, not just cultural. Perhaps it’s tied in with something “cute,” something “homey,” “something “more adoring.” I don’t really know, but I do know that it takes me aback when I hear mom used in what I would consider an inappropriate setting, and I hear it several times every single day. This common preference now to use mom instead of mother is also likely tied in with that blurred division nowadays between what we consider formal and informal in American culture and how language is reflecting that.
Oh, by the way, the same thing is happening with dad vs. father, although it’s not as commonly heard. So listen for these changes and you may be surprised at what you hear.
· Baby Mama and Baby Daddy
Speaking of mom and dad crowding out mother and father due to a cultural shift, there are two terms that seem to have taken hold in American English in the past few years which fill a gap that didn’t exist a generation ago in our culture. I’m referring to the identifiers baby mama and baby daddy.
A generation ago it was still considered taboo to have a child out of wedlock, but American culture has done a 180-degree reversal on this issue. Now it’s become so commonplace to find babies born to unmarried parents that two new identifiers, which work quite efficiently, have arrived on the linguistic scene for these new relationships. It was just too awkward to say things like the mother of my baby or the father of my baby, which can get really tiresome to say if repeated a few times during a conversation.
These identifiers were borrowed from Black English, in which the possessive marker, the ’s genitive, isn’t used (e.g., my brother car; his auntie house). So his baby mama is the woman who some guy had a child with out of wedlock, and her baby daddy is the man who some woman had a child with out of wedlock.
Aside from any cultural discussion on this issue, it’s interesting to witness once again this really marvelous feature that a language can generate new terms to fill a need whenever necessary.
· In Part 2 of this series, I made mention of sentences like They saw Jim and I at the mall yesterday, in which the subject form of the 1st person singular pronoun is used following somebody and … where the object form (Jim and me) should be used in traditional grammar.
This is now being carried to an extreme I would never have thought possible – and by educated speakers, no less. The new version of this phenomenon occurs when he or she appears in a compound object (he/she and somebody). I’ve only heard this odd construction with the singular personal pronouns I, he, and she, so I can’t attest to the existence of they and somebody.
The following examples came out of the mouths of a TV news reporter, a talk show host, a lawyer, and a judge:
- It was the same thing with she and her husband.
- As his attorney, whatever we discussed would just be between he and I and the district attorney.
- I saw no talking at all between she and her sister during the party.
- You want she and her mother to be his caregivers instead of LPN’s?
I must say here that even though I’ve heard such constructions uttered by educated people, I’m going to keep hoping that it’s just an aberration, not something that will catch on!
· It All Started with Ms.
Throughout the history of English, changes have occurred. Sometimes they’ve been accidental, such as when the n in napron got detached and was stuck onto the indefinite article before it so that a napron became an apron. Sometimes the changes have been deliberate, such as those influenced by the Feminist Movement (e.g., the creation of Ms.; firemen becoming firefighters; airplane stewards and stewardesses becoming flight attendants; mailmen becoming mail carriers).
That was all well and good. I totally agree with dropping gendered words and replacing them with neutral words for jobs that are now done by both men and women, but let’s remember that we had many of these even before the Feminist Movement, such as doctor, teacher, lawyer, and judge, to name a few. And we can find other examples of this trend, such as mankind becoming humankind. That’s great!
But what strikes me as very odd – even amusing – is when this trend went beyond job titles and the like and started adopting the male term for both males and females: actor (no more actress); murderer (no more murderess); heir (no more heiress). I just wonder why activists in the Feminist Movement are comfortable with deferring to the male forms of these words. Why did the male forms win out?
And come to think of it, what do we do with terms like manhole, one-upmanship, and no-man’s land? Oops! Your guess is as good as mine. (Yes, I’m sitting here grinning a little.)
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So there you have it. It will be fun to see down the road how many – if any – of the lexical and grammatical items discussed in this six-part series will become commonly accepted either as replacements or alternatives. One thing’s for certain, though. English will keep evolving, and if it’s still a living language a thousand years from now, it will probably be as unrecognizable from today’s English as the English of a thousand years ago is to us today. Just have a look. Our Father who is in heaven, may Your name be revered … hardly resembles how it was spoken and written a thousand years ago: Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod …
I rest my case.
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