Before I begin, I just have to comment on the sign on the broken blitz computer in Collis: how cool is that?!
But, anyway, I've got issues with the English language.
Apparently, so do many other Americans. It seems like in so many facets of daily life I see grammar or punctuation or spelling mistakes. English is a complicated language, with lots of rules and even more exceptions. It's not phonetic (it is ironic that even 'phonetic' isn't phonetic). And it often seems arbitrary. The second best piece of advice that I received from my grandfather was something that he told me when I was in fifth grade. He said: "If you learn nothing else in school, learn how to speak and write the English language correctly." I think he could not be more right. In our interactions with people, what stands out more than anything except physical appearance is how we speak (or write, in non-personal relations). As such, it drives me crazy to see obvious mistakes in highly visible communication mediums.
My best friend goes to Carleton College, which is a very smart school, much like Dartmouth. She e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago and told me about a sign that she saw in her dorm. Apparently, their residence halls have Student Wellness Advisors, who take care of health concerns. The sign said: "Bob Smith and Kelly Jones [or whatever their names were]: Your Student Wellness Advisor's." Ok, so there's no need for that apostrophe. These are smart people who made the signs. Clearly, their early lessons in punctuation have not been lasting.
And here's an even more egregious example of incorrect signage, one that has stuck with me for some time: (as seen on the bathroom wall in a dance club, advertising food items available) "... pickels, burrito's and taco's ..." First of all, why is the distinction made between adding an apostrophe to 'burritos' and to 'tacos' and not to 'pickels'? Secondly, look at a jar of pickles before writing the word down on a sign that will be seen by tons of people!
My biggest pet-peeve in the realm of punctuation is the unnecessary usage of quotation marks. Quotation marks are designed exclusively to indicate something that was specifically said or written. If something needs to be accentuated, use capital letters or bold print. I see so many signs that employ quotation marks for the most ridiculous reasons. Stop the madness!
Let's look at road signs. How many times have you seen that sign proclaiming: "Slow Children at Play"? And how many times have you laughed at it, thinking how funny it is to make a sign telling drivers to watch out for the "slow children"? A friend of mine joked that the sign was only about the slow kids because the fast ones were too quick to be hit by cars. I just wonder why a colon or semicolon couldn't be thrown in there. It would make such a difference in how the sign is read. It can't be a cost issue: one extra character can't possibly be that much more expensive. Speaking of road signs, how about the one on highway 89 identifying our favorite institute of higher learning? If you haven't seen it, it says: "Dartmouth Coll." Why not just add the extra three letters, and make it complete?!
Pop songs get to me too. One of the most common grammatical mistakes I hear in the usage of the English language is 'if' and 'was' used together. In any expression of doubt, 'were' is the correct verb to employ in conjunction with 'if.' For example, I would say: "If I were to ..." and that would be correct. So many artists sing "if -- was." The thing is that 'was' and 'were' are both one syllable words, and many times their placement is not crucial to the rhyme scheme, so why can't songwriters just use 'were'? I have so much respect for those artists and songwriters who do use it correctly. The other thing I notice about songs is the misuse of pronouns. One of the biggest shortcomings in English is the absence of a neutral pronoun for people in the singular. You just can't use 'it' to designate people, so oftentimes, we have to resort to 'they,' which is plural, but used with singular forms of verbs.
Whew. That was a bit of a tirade. Let me be the first to say that I am not above reproach in the field of grammar and punctuation mistakes. In fact, I would guess that I made a few just in this column. But I think the fact that incorrect usage of the English language is so ubiquitous in our daily lives illustrates the need for continued attention to grammar, aside from paper-writing and formal speaking. We've all got issues on this one.
