Grammar Problems: Why I Hate Your English

Your English sucks.

I write, therefore I am. pic.twitter.com/JNJ5I3FWJu

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 23, 2016

I know you’ve heard me speak many moons ago in something less than perfectly crisp, well-enunciated English. Call it colloquialism or regional dialect in an age of YouTube and social media or whatever you want, but our “slanguistics” – the manner which we use slang  in modern language – varies from one generation to the next. For example, those redheaded Sallies our fathers and grandfathers once cavorted around with are renamed Becky:  same woman, same game, same feeling only another name.

I can point out our pedantic flaws because 1) I was an English major in college; 2) I taught the subject for several years; and 3) my weekly blogs from AD&AD require proper English for mass comprehension. This means that I am an authority of the English language. If you don’t like it, then you have the opportunity to redeem yourselves every day.

If you can't spell or follow basic grammatical syntax, then I have a serious problem with you. #grammarnerd pic.twitter.com/8MqH9L93Wu

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 4, 2016

Why do I hate your English? I have a litany of reasons below:

1.      The use of the gratuitous “s”:  Believe it or not, Wal-Mart is singular. Sam Walton’s ashes would turn over and over every time someone termed his company stores as “Walmarts” unless you indeed were going to two or more Wal-Mart locations. If you do that, please tell me which one has the shortest checkout lines and the most authentically cheerful associates so I can spend more of my hard-earned money there. More examples include the following:

·         Krogers

·         Mens

·         Wimmens

·         Chirrens

·         The Internets

·         Miami Heats

2.      When we make plural words singular. In the midst of her griping about the ‘letric bill being sky high, Big Mama also has a penchant for making plural nouns singular, i.e. lips loses the “s”. You’ve heard her tell us to “stop smacking our lip” at the dinner table. I wouldn’t correct her for there is a real possibility that one could go home without an upper or lower lip.

3.      I hate it when we eighty-six possession. Roscoe did not bust his butt for years making his trademark chicken and waffles for us to say “Roscoe Chicken and Waffles”. Put some respect on the possession and include the “’s”, as in “Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles”. Ditto for Chuck E. Cheese’s and Dave and Buster’s, Wendy’s, or anywhere someone had the temerity to place his or her name in the business title. 

4.      More of the gratuitous letter, this time the letter “r”. I get it. We love Tyler Perry, especially when he dons women’s clothing to play Madea and captures her local color masterfully with such phrases as “Hellur, Madear” to speak to the matriarch of the family. I have no idea what an “idear” is, I recognize Obama not “Obamer” (or what white conservatives call him, Obummer); and the damn remote controller is NOT “mokentrolla”. Of course, when a black man invented the remote controller, he had no idea that the device would be mangled as badly as it has become by our lexicon! Besides, it changes the channel – and sometimes, the nearest child to the television serves as the role. Trust me when I say I remember the days of Channels 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, and sometimes 38.

5.      On today; on tomorrow; on yesterday. Look, we know what happened today or yesterday, and what is scheduled for tomorrow. Drop the “on” and simply use the day; it really isn’t that difficult.

6.      Valentime’s Day. If he were still walking the earth, St. Valentine would aim those sharp-pointed bows at our behinds every time he heard us mispronounce his name. Just as librarians cringe when folks say “lie-barry” instead of library as if the first “r” is nonexistent, Saint Valentine would love for you to enunciate his surname.

7.      Even more gratuitous misuse: “The”. I acknowledge that many of you use the word “the” as our crutch to define any noun we cannot physically place our hands upon such as “the AIDS”, “the Facebook”, or “the Twitter”.

I don’t consider myself a grammar Nazi yet I dislike the ways the English language is used by so many of us. Then again, I’m just getting old and expect everyone to use the Queen’s English as we were taught in schools to convey our arguments saliently.

Use commas or risk being called a psycho cannibal. #grammarnerd pic.twitter.com/LRKRszlg1m

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 12, 2016

Think about it:  our parents did not use “bomb” in the way we invoke the word. Back then, a bomb was (and still is) an explosive while we Generation Xers call great things bomb, ie. that not-so-great Kriss Kross album from junior high Da Bomb or “bomb-a** ish.”

Poof.

I still hate your English.