Overthrowing the grammar fascist

Oh, Lord. It’s stronger than me. I found myself correcting the television screen, much to my son Nicky’s amusement, when a character in a series solemnly declared, “he did it for you and I”.

“You and me,” I said automatically.

It happened yesterday again in a swimming pool. The only way I can swim lengths is to use a waterproof mp3 player and listen to podcasts. One of the speakers in yesterday’s episode informed us that, at the time he was talking about, “there were vast amounts of petitions”.

“Vast numbers of petitions,” I couldn’t help myself telling him. Petitions are countable. You don’t get amounts of them, you get numbers.

Of course, what I really said was something like “burble, burble, bubble, bubble” because I was under water at the time. But you get what I mean.

My reaction, in both cases, was stupid in at least two ways.

Firstly, no one in the TV series or the podcast could hear me, and nobody would have cared if they could.

Secondly, the meaning of what was being said was entirely obvious on both occasions. Who cared that there is a ‘rule’ somewhere, far more significant for a small number of grammar autocrats than for any real speakers of the language? 

Well, I suppose the answer is that I’d care, but that only means I’m one of those ghastly grammar fascists people often, and rightly, rail against.

Grammar fascists: time to say no

After all, what I should have been upset about wasn’t the grammar of the two statements, but their triteness: “he did it for us?” That sounds like as bad, and threadbare, an excuse as, “it isn’t you, it’s me”. And “vast amounts of petitions”? What he means is that people were resorting to petitions, because parliament wasn’t doing what they wanted – or thought they wanted – on its own initiative. But I’m sure the number would be more like several, rather than vast.

That same son, Nicky, and I fell out – not in any major or long-term way, you understand, only for a matter of minutes – over “didn’t use to”. I’ve always preferred “used not to”. Far too pedantic for Nicky. And he’s right. After all, if I’m going to get so uptight over that construction, why not go the whole hog and say “usen’t to”? I mean, apart from the fact that I’d get some weird reactions.

After all, I accept plenty of questionable constructions. I’d always say, “I’m eating the last slice of cake, aren’t I?”, not “I’m eating the last slice of cake, amn’t I?” I suppose the second form (which is, obviously more correct, since we say “I am” not “I are”) would at least get people to focus on my grammar freakery rather than my greed in eating the last slice of cake.

I’m trying to train myself out of these terrible habits (well, not the cake one). Soon I’ll no doubt be able to casually split infinitives, with barely a wince. And I have no trouble ending my sentences with a preposition without my hair standing up. But I’ve clearly got a long way to go.

Funnily enough, one of my favourite Guardian columnists raised the problem today. Nesrine Malik learned English as a child at school, but as her second language, after Arabic. She says her English will never be “perfect”, but when she drops words like “am”, which she points out don’t exist in Arabic, in sentences like “I tired” or “I hungry”, she’s still fully understandable,  isn’t she? 

Nor has her allegedly less-than-perfect English stopped her being an outstandingly good columnist.

But as well as her example, I have an excellent model in my own wife, Danielle. We’re both slowly learning Spanish as we settle into our lives as immigrants to this kind country. Spanish has lots of fine word endings, for instance to identify the past or future of verbs, to say nothing of more subtle distinctions that we would make by just chucking in another word – a had, or a could, or a would, or a might, or a may. So a sentence like:

“I had hoped you might write the document she would read”

Becomes:

“Esperaba que tú escribieras el documento que ella leería”

That string of “-aba”, “-ieras” and “-ría” just seems hopelessly tortuous for the (adult) foreign learner of the language. Especially as there’s an alternative form for one of them: “-ieras” can be replaced by “-ieses”, and even if you don’t learn to use both, you need to recognise them when you hear or read them.

My wife is mastering these things slowly as she goes along, as I am. But when she can’t remember, she has a simple solution. She just uses the present tense. 

Imagine how that works in English.

“I see him yesterday”

Well, it’s unambiguous, isn’t it? The verb form may be wrong, but there’s no problem understanding what’s being said, is there? 

Certainly, she has no trouble communicating with people in Spanish, while I’m struggling to find the right verb form and getting left behind by the conversation. 

It’s only ambiguous when you hear something like:

“Certainly, I talk to him.”

Easy to solve. A quick question:

“You have talked to him or you’re going to talk to him?”

“Yesterday” or “tomorrow” as an answer clears up any uncertainty.

My favourite linguist, John McWhorter, is strong on this subject. As he points out, there must have been a time when an annoyed Anglo-Saxon grammar fascist must have said to a kid, “you can’t tell your brother to ‘come here’. You mean ‘come hither’. With movement, it’s ‘hither’. He can stay here but he can’t come here.”

That would still be true in modern German. “Komm her” is “come here”. “Bleib hier” is “stay here”. That difference between “her” and “hier” is the difference between “hither” and “here”.

Similarly, I picture another pedantic Old Englishman telling his son, “what do you mean by ‘do you know?’ ‘Do you know?’ What sort of English is that? What’s your question got to do with doing? What you mean is ‘knowest thou?’”

Well, I’m certainly not going to start saying “knowest thou”. So if I can cope with the “do” in “do you know?”, why can’t I cope with the “did” (or “didn’t”) in “didn’t use to”? Clearly, with the gentle (or, in Nicky’s case, not so gentle) guidance of John McWhorter, Nesrine Malik, Danielle and Nicky, it’s time I learned to fight the grammar fascist.

That’s not a grammar fascist out there, but the one irritatingly occupying my head.