Okay. I'm sorry. I'm writing again the day after my last post and I'm not quite sure what is happening to me; such newfound dedication placed upon me overnight (literally). But this post will, just to warn you, bore you to death - grammar Nazis, read on. Everyone else, back away slowly, attempting to cover your eyes and ears with your mere two hands, whilst humming loudly to block out the despicable sounds of grammar gunfire. Run for your lives!
Grammar is important. I wonder if all those people who claim to 'love' England and our culture, who speak disdainfully of immigrants (legal or otherwise) - you know the sort; the irritating ones who act like they know everything - I wonder if they can use our language properly. I wonder if they can punctuate correctly and, if they can't and have no intention of learning to do so, I wonder if they have ever considered that it is not just foreign people destroying England's elusive culture.
I'm pretty sure that England is one of the most multicultural countries in the world - though of course I'm not positive - and I'm not opposed to foreigners living here. Actually I believe that it opens our minds to other people's ways of life and therefore encourages empathy, which is never a bad thing. However, I do think that if people are going to live here in the UK, they should learn English and they shouldn't try to push their own cultures onto us. I mean, if I moved to another country, I would respect that it's going to be different to what I'm used to and therefore try to learn to share that way of life. I'd want to. It's just simple respect.
Anyway, this post isn't about my views on this subject. It's about grammar and the English language - language in general, actually, as I'm sure it's the same in other areas around the world. When I've learned enough languages to know for sure, I'll drop you a line.
I'm too young to frequently occupy pubs - shame really, as they can provide such good eavesdropping material - but if you're ever in London at night, walking past the window of an establishment in which alcohol flows freely, you may hear, between the outbursts of raucous laughter, the odd voice mouthing off about 'asylum seekers' this and 'bloody Polish' that. The thing is, many of these anonymous voices aren't exactly skilled in the complex ways of spoken English themselves; maybe it's a dialect thing, or maybe it's just an education thing. Either way, the English are also destroying their own culture - by causing the death of their own language.
You walk through the street and you see signs in shop windows advertising DVD's, CD's, and even, most horrifyingly, BOOK's. Sometimes people leave the S uppercase, implying that that's an initial too: DVD'S.
Then, when you've passed the entertainment shop, you're invited to come in for cake's and maybe a cup of coffea or hot choclate. Doesn't it just make you want to scream or perhaps whip out your red pen and start scribbling?
Even when you Google 'grammar mistakes', you're presented with a wide array of suggestions with similar titles to 'grammar mistakes that make you look stupid' - an example itself of its title. That should be 'which', not 'that', you knob.
An infuriating popular misconception is that teenagers are bad at spelling. Spelling and grammar are not something that, once you reach twenty, you suddenly find yourself with an aptitude for. How old am I? I'm seventeen. I will never send an email or a text, never post a Facebook status, never write anything without full standard grammar and correct spelling. For as long as I can remember, I've had a passion and a love for grammar - call me a nerd if you want to. It doesn't matter to me. Why should I feel embarrassed because I'm good at writing properly? Why should I be ashamed when I self consciously point out a mistake in a friend's work? They should appreciate that all I'm trying to do is raise the standard of English in their writing; not only will that make them look more intelligent, it will also mean that they don't lose marks for having mistakes in their homework. Being able to spell and punctuate correctly is a talent, and in the words of Wicked's Madame Morrible, never apologize for talent.
Text abbreviations have got rarer in younger generations now. They were widely used throughout the early years of mobile phones, when every character would cost more money, but that isn't the case anymore and so people are beginning to write more fully. However, many adults with older phones still have to put up with this and still abbreviate, making the idea of teenagers abbreviating more absolute bollocks. My father shortens words much more than I do when texting (not hard, since I don't do it at all) and I'm sure my mum would too, if she were actually able to write a text. Bless her. Actually, the technique of abbreviating words has been around since the Victorian era... I wonder if Vicky sat on her throne, scratching out 'Im nt amused' with her ink and feather. But, thinking about it, abbreviations are what occurs when one removes letters from a word, are they not? Not just any old letters, but vowels. And if abbreviations are making people 'stupid', 'illiterate', and mean that 'people don't know how to spell', then tell me: how do people know which letters to remove in the first place?
On that note, why is bad grammar acceptable in songs? It's like people just gloss over it, forget it, don't even notice it. What's happening to songwriters which means they're incapable of putting a full sentence in a song, minus an 'ain't' or a 'baby' to fill a space? Do they not realize that words are just about the most powerful weapon one could ever use? A well thought out cluster of words can pack more of a punch than any fist, no matter how toned up the arm it belongs to, and music is supposed to be able to inspire, awaken, destroy. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. But really - how are we supposed to be inspired by 'music' when all it talks about is how much the singer wants sex, or how brokenhearted Justin Bieber is? For me, bad grammar makes a song unable to be taken seriously, and it's really not hard to compose a sentence which actually means something. If I can't fit a sentence in a song I'm writing, I rephrase it. You don't have to resort to non standard grammar to make it work, because let me tell you - it doesn't.
For the record, 'lose' has one O. 'Loose' has two. 'Lose' and 'loose' are NOT the same word. Also, what is with people's inability to spell 'all right'? 'All right' is TWO words. It is not spelled 'alright'. Same, but opposite, with 'already'. 'Already' is one word; not spelled 'all ready'. I can see how they can be confused, but they are different words with different meanings. Getting words confused can have drastic consequences - I remember when, in year ten, my English teacher attempted to demonstrate this by showing us two real life examples from exam papers:
Instead of writing 'he heard the sound of heavy breathing above him', the student got 'breathing' muddled with 'breeding', resulting in this sentence:
'He heard the sound of heavy breeding above him.'
Another student managed to mix up 'matting' with 'mating' whilst writing 'there was rough matting on the floor', and he ended up with:
'There was rough mating on the floor.'
So you see my point? Learn to spell, guys. Grab a dictionary, for the good of the human race.
Molly x
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