Is the Internet Destroying Our Ability to Use Correct Grammar?

Language changes right along with culture. Every anthropologist, linguist, and word-watcher knows this. And grammar changes too, especially among "in-groups" who use their own dialects. But does basic good grammar have to be dropped by the wayside?

I know I get pedantic about this subject, and I should probably have a "grammar police" badge in my pocket. I don't have the right to criticize others for "not following the rules" in their writing. And yet, and yet..... As someone who spent much of her life writing for a living, seeing horrendous basic errors, done because the writer didn't know better, not deliberately to signal a folksy style, just causes me pain. Maybe I taught English for too many years; maybe I've read too many books on writing or on style, but the fact remains that I want to take a red pen and correct much of what I read.

Here are a few examples.

Verb Tense

People seem to forget, once they get out of English 101, that English has more than one way of expressing events that occurred in the past, the present, or the future. This happens most often with irregular verbs such as "to go" or "to be" than with regular ones, but it happens with alarming regularity.

There are three common past tenses: simple past, past imperfect, and past perfect. The simple past expresses a single action that took place in the past, uses the verb alone, without any "helper verbs" (the term most likely to be recognized by those who didn't take advanced grammar, which bores most people). An example using an irregular verb: I ATE dinner last night. An example using a regular verb: She WALKED her dog last night.

The past imperfect signifies action that has taken place in the past but which may be on-going, or may happen again, and uses a form of the verb "to have" as a "helper." An example using an irregular verb: I HAVE GONE to that restaurant many times, and HAVE EATEN their food. An example using a regular verb: SHE HAS WALKED her dog every night this week. Another variant of the imperfect uses the verb "to be" as its auxiliary. "WERE you going to school in 1995?" "Yes, I WAS GOING then."

The past perfect indicates action that may have occurred more than once, but which is now over ("perfected") and it too uses a "helper." An example with an irregular verb: My father HAD GONE to that store once, but he hated it and won't go back. (Note the use of the simple past after the past perfect; the past perfect occurs before the past time in which the rest of the sentence occurs, if you can follow that.) An example using a regular verb: She HAD WALKED her dog before she took a shower. (Again, the past imperfect precedes the rest of the past action.) This tense is used in writing more than in common speech; note too that it uses the PAST tense of the "helper" verb, that is, "had" instead of "have."

There are also three common present tenses: simple present, progressive present, and declarative present. Simple present is very simple; one word. Let's quote Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." Like the past imperfect, the simple present is used primarily in writing. In speech, you are more apt to use the progressive present. "What ARE you DOING?" "I AM WASHING the dog." Declarative present uses "do" as a helper, and is most often heard in questions and their answers. For example, "DO you BRUSH your teeth?" "Yes, I DO." (In this one instance, English is more complex than most European languages; French, German, and Spanish, as three common examples, have all of these forms condensed into one, and the meaning is understood from context.)

In English, futurity is generally shown by adding a "will" to the verb: "I WILL WALK the dog tomorrow," for example, or "He WILL EAT there again."

Another verb problem is person. Let me explain. In English, as in most (but not all) Indo-European languages, there are three "persons" and their plurals. "First Person" is "I" or its plural, "we," Second person is "you," as is its plural; in this we are unlike many others that use different words for the singular and plural, along with different verb forms; English doesn't distinguish between second person singular and plural in either the pronoun "you" or the verb form. Consider yourself fortunate. Third person singular is "he, she, it," while the plural is "they." Some persons share a verb form, while others have their own.

Most people get first person, even in different tenses: "I AM GOING, I WENT, I HAVE GONE (note the "have"), I WILL GO, I WAS GOING. I HAVE GONE; we ARE GOING, we WENT, etc." Most people understand third person, too: "He IS GOING, she WENT, they HAVE GONE, it WILL GO," and so on. It is with second person that people tend to fall on their faces. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard "Was you there?" I'd be a wealthy woman, and probably be on a beach somewhere instead of writing for AC. Second person, or "you," looks like this: "You ARE GOING, you GO, you DO GO, you HAVE GONE, you WERE GOING, you WENT, you HAD GONE, you WILL GO," and so on. [If you don't understand this, do yourself a favor and buy a copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White; it is a small, inexpensive paperback, easy to read if a little stuffy, and it explains all of this and much more. It also has a section on commonly misused words that most of us find extremely useful. Let this be one of your mantras: "I won't use a big word unless I am absolutely certain I understand it." Big words impress no one if used incorrectly, and smaller words that mean the same thing make your writing easier to read. But, I digress.]

Pronouns

Most of us know the pronouns (I, me, mine, he, him, his, etc) and most of us use them correctly when they are the subject (I, you, he, we, they). There are three places where they are commonly misused, however. The most common misuses are in the objective case (me, you, him, us, them) and the possessive form of "it." The third form is when a pronoun is used attached to -self. (I shudder each time I see "hisself" or "theirselves.")

Almost all languages on earth have both a subjective case and an objective case. In English we are fortunate that it is expressed solely in the pronoun; in most languages it is indicated on the pronoun, any adjectives used with a noun, and often on the noun itself. (As an aside, we are also lucky that gender in English is shown only in pronouns, so you don't have to memorize the gender of every noun in the language.) The subjective case means the form used when the pronoun is the subject of a sentence or clause, and most of us usually get it right. "HE is a doctor." "SHE loves dogs." "THEY like movies." "WE eat together." Simple, right? It should be.

But the objective case is another matter. Again, most of us use it correctly when it is the object of a verb. "Mary hit HIM." "The neighbors don't like US." "Steve loves HER." "Kim corrected YOU." (See - an easy one! "you" only has one form! Hooray!). When it is the object of a preposition, and/or part of a plural, it's another story. Prepositions take objects, and that means they take the objective case of pronouns. (What is a preposition? you ask. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "a word placed before a substantive and indicating the relation of that substantive to a verb, an adjective, or another substantive." Huh? Let's keep it simple: In English, common prepositions are: Of, with, between, among, behind, at, in, to -- these and words like them are prepositions.)

So what does that mean to the writer? If you use a preposition and follow it with a pronoun, you MUST use the objective form of that pronoun. It's pretty easy if the object is singular. "I'm going WITH HIM." "He's standing BEHIND HER." "He's in front OF ME." The problem usually arises when the writer uses "and" in the object of a pronoun. Even with "and" in the object, you must use the objective case. "Just between YOU and ME" is correct; "between YOU and I" is just plain wrong, as is "between HE and SHE." People use it all the time in speaking, even on TV and in movies, for which I blame the writers who should know better, but that is how people speak, and it is apparently acceptable in casual conversation. When you are writing, you should use it correctly. Here's the simplest way I use to get it right: If the object is plural with "and" between two words, one or both of which are pronouns, I mentally replace it with the singular first person, because I can always get that right. If I would say "I" then I use the subjective case; if I would use "me" then I use the objective. For example, in "Between him and me" - since I know I would use "me" I use "him" as well. Since I also know I would say "Between US" if the two were combined, then clearly they both have to be objects (HIM and ME). If you say "between WE" in casual conversation, you may as well just forget this whole piece.

"It" seems to be a problem for most people; "Its" is the possessive - no apostrophe! With an apostrophe, "it's" means "it is." Simple in stating, harder in writing. My fingers always want to type in that apostrophe, and I don't always remember to delete it, even though I know the rule.

Lastly the "-self" words. They are confusing because in the first and third person, English uses the possessive pronouns (my, our), so those words are "myself, ourselves," and "yourself or yourselves." But in the third person, the objective pronoun is used: himself, herself, itself, themselves. Why does it work like this? I have no idea. It's just one of the eccentricities of English and you have to memorize it. [Why is "children" the plural of "child?" The simple answer: because in German - and this word comes from Old German into English - the plural of "kind" (child) is "kinder." BUT -- that's irregular for German too! So why? Again, it just is, and it's one of those things you must memorize.]

Conclusion

There are plenty of grammar books available, so I'll stop here. If you recognize your own writing in any of the incorrect forms, then please educate yourself so your writing sounds like you graduated from high school, at the very least. If you never make any of these mistakes, then congratulations -- you're smarter than I am! Again, in conversation, most of these "mistakes" are acceptable. If you are writing with your own dialect or in a particular style, these rules may not apply. But if you are writing an informative article in standard English - please follow the rules!