Wow -- had no idea how many of us there were that pay attention to the English language! My heart is encouraged. Mel brought up a good point (and David illustrated that I probably missed a hilarious 'Night Court') about people that say "for all intensive purposes". Those people are obviously not even thinking about the words they are saying -- but have just developed a bad habit.
It made me think of another phrase that I have no idea what is correct, so I have quit using it altogether. I grew up saying, "all of a sudden." I hear people saying, "all the sudden." Thinking about the word 'sudden' as an adjective, I'm not sure either one is correct and we should use the word "suddenly" instead. But I continue to ponder and wonder.
And for This One's for the Girls -- WalMartS drives me NUTS. However, so many people say it that I use it now in my best hillbilly voice as in, "We're goin' inta town to visit the Wal-Marts." And my precious 94 year old grandmother calls it "the Wal-Marts." I figure she's entitled, so I try to cut her a little slack!
And, in doing research because I got called on the carpet, although a definition of "lingual" makes it a perfectly fine word for that point, a more appropriate term for me would be a "linguistic snob".
5 comments:
I will quote my advanced grammar teacher on this one--once a language quits changing it will die...so we have to accept that English is an ever changing language! We had many discussion about how words start at verbs or nouns (i.e. Drink) and slowly morph into the other...which is what is happening with sudden! Suddenly would probably be the best choice...but I can bet that by the time our children are having this discussion "all the sudden" will be perfectly acceptable! Wow...I kindof sound like the English teacher I am supposed to be!! HEE HEE
Perhaps we should view language as a means to an end, rather that an end unto itself. Does it communicate the idea? Then perhaps language has effectively done its job, even with mistakes and inconsistencies.
My granpa used to have "the headache." He would drink Coke for it so we couldn't have any of his Cokes.
Colloquialisms such as "fixin' to" are endearing. . .just plain bad grammar is jarring. Just my take.
Well, I just realized that the typo "PumpkinG eater" has been on my blog all week. *blush* Please don't black ball me. :) There WILL be more typos from me in the future I'm afraid...
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