Grammar Crimes
By Lois Winston
Like Henry Higgins, grammar crimes make me cringe. I’m sure you remember his immortal words: “Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?” He then went on to add, “In America, they haven’t spoken it in years.” He wasn’t wrong.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
Grammar Crimes
Thanks to my junior high school English teacher, I suffer from a multitude of grammar pet peeves. Throughout seventh and eighth grade, Peggy Riley Hughes drummed grammar into me. Since then, poor grammar, whether written or spoken, makes me cringe. I can’t help it. Those rules were burned into my brain.
Split Logs, not Infinitives
To boldly go where no man has gone before. Remember that opening from Star Trek? Cringe-worthy! Gene Rodenberry obviously didn’t have Peggy Riley Hughes as an English teacher. If he had, he never would have split his infinitive.
Sadly, the Oxford English Dictionary did the unthinkable years ago and declared that it’s now okay to split infinitives. It’s no longer a grammar crime. The horror! Poor Peggy! At least she didn’t live long enough to experience such a crime.
License to Take Liberties
As authors, we have license to take liberties with our writing. For instance, when I write dialogue, I don’t necessarily write in perfectly formed sentences because people rarely speak in perfectly formed sentences. We speak in sentence fragments. So do our characters, but that’s okay. We want our characters to sound real, not stilted.
Style often dictates that sentence fragments also be used in narrative, depending on the genre, the plot, the era, and the characters populating our novel. Again, that’s perfectly acceptable.
If you Break it, Own it
Deliberately committing a grammar crime is okay if there’s a reason for doing so. The foremost reason is to keep your characters believable. “Me and him were late for school.” works if the dialog is spoken by a young child or in narrative, if you’re writing the scene from the child’s point of view. It would stand out like the proverbial sore thumb if spoken by a college professor.
Breaking this Rule Doesn’t Make You Sound More Intelligent
The grammar crime that makes me cringe the most, though, is the misuse of pronouns. For some reason, even very well-educated people constantly misuse pronouns, substituting “I” for “me” because they think using the nominative case for the objective case sounds more intelligent.
There are Three Types of Pronouns
Nominative: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, and who
Objective: me, you, him, her, it, us, them, and whom
Possessive: my, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs, and whose
The nominative form is used when the pronoun is the subject of a sentence. The objective form is used when the pronoun is the direct object of the sentence or is part of a prepositional phrase.
WRONG: He invited Mary and I.
RIGHT: He invited Mary and me.
WRONG: The coach had to choose between Mary and I.
RIGHT: The coach had to choose between Mary and me.
Hopefully, the OED won’t someday decide that it’s perfectly acceptable to replace the objective with the nominative. “He invited I.” “He sat opposite I.” “The coach chose I.” Holy cringe-worthy grammar crime! 😵💫
However, because we’re dealing with English, there’s an exception to this grammar rule. Because in English, it seems there’s always an exception to just about every rule. In this case, it’s the “to be” verbs, also known as “linking verbs.” When using am, is, are, was, were, or be, you use the nominative form of the pronoun for the direct object, not the objective.
WRONG: It was him.
RIGHT: It was he.
WRONG: It’s me.
RIGHT: It’s I.
If you’re now thoroughly confused, you’re not alone.
Never the Both of Us
Finally, there are many grammar rules I remember from my junior high days and know not to break, but I don’t remember the reason for the rule. For example, it’s either “the two of us” or “both of us” but never “the both of us.” Don’t ask me why. I forgot the reason for that grammar rule many decades ago, if there ever was a logical reason. It’s quite possible that just for fun, some grammarian at Oxford or Cambridge decided to make life and the English language more confusing for all of us. After all, they didn’t have TV, the Internet, or video games back then. They had to get their amusement from somewhere.
Do you have a grammar pet peeve? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook download of any of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries or Empty Nest Mysteries.
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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com. Sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.
When it comes to remembering being taught the rules of grammar and how to study and apply rules to language, one of my favorite activities was diagramming. I don’t have a specific pet peeve….but every now and then, I wish an author would use less adverbs and adjectives.
Or, perhaps, fewer.
Debra, I always found diagramming sentences fun. I think it was the beginnings of my enjoyment of word puzzles.
Are students still taught how to diagram sentences? I used to love doing that. It helped me understand the parts of speech.
I loved diagramming sentences in junior high! It was like a puzzle with every single piece fitting in neatly when you did it right. It really helped me understand the parts of a sentence. I share your horror at the complete misunderstanding of pronouns today. I learned punctuation after college at Katharine Gibbs School in NYC, training for the executive secretarial course. Boy was that a miscasting. But not only did we learn punctuation, but we had to learn the rule that governed it. So we’d read out a passage like this: “Before she left for work each morning (comma 26.a) she ate breakfast (comma 6), fed the cat (comma 6), and read the newspaper (period 1).”
Connie, sounds like you could write a blog post on punctuation! Maybe you should. Some punctuation errors are so laughable that they’ve been immortalized on T-shirts: “Let’s eat kids” as opposed to “Let’s eat, kids.” 😉
Grammar not my best writing subject especially hated putting it in a graph in high school diagnosing it as a noun, verb, adjective, participle, past participle, etc… just hated it didn’t see the point teach kids the right way to speak and write grammar correctly but without graphs
Crystal, that’s pretty much the way I felt about trigonometry!
I cringe when I hear people in restaurants ordering their food using the verb “do.” Example: I’ll do a cheeseburger.”
How in the heck can you DO a cheeseburger?
LOL, Kathleen! When I moved to Philadelphia for college, I noticed that Philadelphians always said, “I’ll go with.” With whom? They never said. The sentence always ended with “with.” I’ve never come across that linguistic quirk anywhere else.
LOL, Kathleen!
It’s called “vernacular,” and is a wonderful way of creating character, though.
My pet peeve: when people misuse and confuse ” less” and “fewer.” Example: the fewer things (I can count) on my schedule, the less worrisome (an uncountable condition) my day becomes. Try switching the less/fewer qualifiers in that sentence and you can see why it doesn’t work the other way around. I’ve been know to correct a few TV personalities for the error that makes me grit my teeth. I blame my mother.
What bothers me more than TV personalities, is when I see flagrant grammar errors in books. Editors should have enough of a command of the English language to know basic grammar. Isn’t that supposed to be part of their job?
What is this “editor” of which you speak? ; )
Many editors now working at publishing companies as well as freelance editors.
Sorry, that was meant to be a joke, hence the winking emoticon.
Editors have always worked at publishing companies. There are fewer of them now than there were in the past, just as there are now fewer proofreaders. Some publishers now leave the editing and proofreading to the author, and there is no requirement for self-published authors to use either.
Sometimes “Lois and I” is correct and sometimes “Lois and me” is correct. So the trick I have learned is to remove the “Lois” from the sentence.
He invited Lois and I: Take out Lois and you have “He invited I.” No one would say that.
BUT Lois and I (vs. Lois and me) have been invited is correct: Take out Lois and “Me have been invited” would be ridiculous.
As for pet peeve, it irks me when there’s a semi-colon (or worse, a colon) in dialogue. People talk in fragments, not in grammatically correct semi-colons and colons.
If we’re getting into semi-colons, Judy, that’s the punctuation mark that’s misused more than any other and probably more than all other punctuation marks combined!
My pet peeve is hearing people say, “Me and my…”
Another cringe-worthy oldie but goodie, Grace!
Absolutely!
I see no problem with split infinitives. The reason we’re not supposed to is because Latin doesn’t, but the infinitive in Latin is a single word; it’s impossible to split. English is two words, not the same as Latin. So boldly go if that’s what you want to do! (And to go boldly isn’t the same as to boldly go…)
Sandra, your explanation makes perfect sense, but you weren’t indoctrinated by Peggy Riley Hughes.
I came here to say the same thing. And this is why the OED no longer considers it heresy, anymore than beginning a sentence with a conjunction.
Using the subjective pronouns where it should be objective is one of my pet peeves too, Lois. He gave the candy to he and I….No, he did NOT! He gave it to him and me!
Yes, Kassandra!
I too was taught the no split infinitives rule, and I cringe a bit every time I do it. But sometimes the phrase doesn’t flow without splitting, or have the same nuance.
For the rest of the misuses, I have to fight being internally judgmental when I hear/see them.
I know the feeling, Sharon!
It appears this article fell victim to Muphry’s Law.
“Like Henry Higgins, grammar crimes make me cringe.” This sentence equates Higgins and crimes, not Higgins and the speaker. To draw the intended comparison, the sentence must be rephrased: “Like Henry Higgins, I cringe at grammar crimes.” Or perhaps more precise: “Like Henry Higgins, I am made to cringe by grammar crimes.”
This error is either a dangling participle or misplaced modifier. I’m sure Ms Hughes would be clear on which one!
Dang, Dayna! You’re quite right. Mea culpa!
Oh my gosh, Dayna! Lois rarely makes such a mistake. Well done!
My face is still red over that one! And in the very first sentence, no less! Chalk it up to lack of sleep.
My grammar cringe is the improper placement of the word ‘only,’ like in the commercials for Liberty Insurance. “Only pay for what you need.” As opposed to stealing it, perhaps?
LOL, Paula!
I am no fan of Liberty or their misbegotten emu, but I believe that what they are saying is, “[With us you] only pay for what you need [,as opposed to those other guys who make you pay for what you do not need]. The irony is that I switched insurers, and my rates dropped about 60%, in part because I was paying for something I did not need.
Improper use of over instead of more than, further instead of farther, effect vs. affect, I could care less instead of I couldn’t care less
As for my cringe-worthy complaint, I change the station whenever I hear the lyrics “I knew we was falling in love” from the 1964 hit song “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” which was made internationally famous by the British invasion band Manfred Mann.
All these comments are marvelous! You must be writers:)
Manfred Mann? Now there’s a group from the past! I’ll have to dig up the song on YouTube and listen to it again. I don’t think I’ve heard it in decades.
In regard to “It’s me,” that’s dialogue, so…it depends on who is speaking. It’s also vernacular.
What I would like is for someone to explain when it is appropriate to use “that.” I am told that I use it too frequently. I don’t know whether that is because I read a lot of Victorian literature or because my second language is Spanish.
Suzanne, it’s hard to answer your question without knowing the context of how and when you’re using “that.” Most authors have at least one pet word or phrase that they use too frequently. It’s always a good idea to do a search during the editing process to see how many times you’ve use a certain word or phrase and change some of them if there are too many.
I’m asking what the rules are.
Suzanne, if you’re referring to “that” vs. “which,” you can find the rules here: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/that_vs_which.html
I’m not, but that is a useful link. I’m referring to the rules — if there are any — about when to use “that” and when not to use it. “I think that we should” vs “I think we should,” etc.
I’m not aware of any rule regarding that, Suzanne.
Oh, well, I tried. LOL. I’ll just keep using it too frequently! LOL. Although I will check to make sure that “which” wouldn’t be more appropriate. That might cut down on some of it.