Watch Your Language!

This is a continuation of my rant on bad grammar and spelling. In this post I am going to examine lay versus lie, gonna, coulda, shoulda, gotta, off of, and similar grammatical errors. I'm also going to write about how certain regional accents cause people to mispronounce, and thus misspell, certain words.

I noticed while I was still in high school that certain people will spell words the way that they pronounce them. I have been guilty of the same thing at times. While still living in Indiana I noticed that many of my friends, neighbors and relatives would mispronounce many common words. For example, "Washington" would be pronounced as "Worshington". Why do they pronounce "wash" as "worsh"? Can't these people spell? Thus a wash cloth would become a "worsh cloth". These same people would pronounce "egg" as "aigh" and "leg" would become "laig". The "e" would be pronounced as a hard "a". People from Boston would die of "hat" attacks and walk on "flaws". They drive in their "caws". People from the southeastern United States would eat "bray-ed" instead of bread and wear their hats on their "hay-eds" instead of their heads. These same southerners would live in a 15 room mansion that they call "a little old house", or "a li'l ole house". While living in North Carolina I heard a black student try to pronounce "gracias". It came out as "grassy ass"! One of the funniest things that I ever heard was my ex-wife trying to pronounce German with a southern accent! "Sprechen Sie Deutsch, y'all?" People from Brooklyn will live on "toity toid" street, and listen to "boyds choip". I can allow for a certain amount of mispronunciation caused by regional accents, but it is still annoying!

My mother still doesn't understand the difference between "lay" and "lie"! She says, "I'm going to lay down for a while". The correct way to say this is, "I'm going to lie down for a while". If I were to put my hat on a table then I would be laying my hat on the table. If I were to put myself in bed then I would be lying in bed. Thus the expression, "You lie like a dog".

Some people say "gonna", "coulda" (or "could of"), "shoulda" (or "should of"), and "gotta" instead of going to, could have, should have, and got to or have to. They sometimes say, "I got to go to the store" when it should be, "I have to go to the store".

"Get off of me!" should be "Get off me!". "Off of" is not only harder to pronounce but is bad grammar!

Imagine going to a doctor for a heart operation. After you walk into the examining room the doctor says to you, "Hi y'all". You are the only person in the room besides him. Who are the other people in "y'all"? "Sit on that there table over yonder and take of them there clothes. I wanna examine yer ticker and see if it is working OK. Now, before we begin this here li'l operation I'm gonna have ta stick yer arse with this here li'l ole needle. Now, ya shoulda followed my advice and lowered yer cholesterol. 'Cause ya didn't, ya gotta have this here heart operation." Once he is done with the preliminary examination he decides that the operation must be done immediately in order to save your life. So he says to you, "Just lay down on that there table and we'll begin the operation." Would you still let him go through with the operation? Would you be checking his diploma to see if he graduated from a real medical school or the University of East Podunk? I would be out of there in a New York heart beat!

Likewise, do you really believe a business person who talks to you about success while misspelling, or mispronouncing, every other word?! I don't! I remember when I was an Amway distributor. One of my up-line diamond direct distributors was Bill Britt. He was a Triple Diamond Direct Distributor and thus a real big shot within Amway. Yet, I heard him on a cassette tape telling his down-line to brush and floss their teeth! Bill lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the time. He stated that the Amway breath spray was good, but not that good! Likewise, if they were talking to people about success and had really bad teeth no one would listen to and believe them. So, Bill told these people to go to a dentist and get their teeth fixed! Was that really such a big problem in North Carolina at the time that Bill Britt had to mention it on a tape that his entire down-line will listen to?! Yet, his points were valid. You will lack credibility entirely if you have bad teeth, bad breath, or poor grammar and spelling.

On the other extreme I have run into college professors who try to impress people with their large vocabularies. I can remember reading an undergraduate psychology textbook on human memory. The author was writing about how people will repeat something over and over again to move it from short-term memory to long-term memory. He then used the term "perturbation of the reverberation" in the textbook. I had to ask my course instructor what that term meant. I had an idea, but wasn't sure. He stated that the author was writing to impress us with his vocabulary rather than writing for clarity! I had to agree with him. He then explained that when you disturb the echo (mental repeating of whatever you are trying to memorize) the information fails to make it to long-term memory.

My main point of this entire rant is simply this - speak or write clearly so that your audience can understand you. Do not speak or write like someone who barely graduated from the fifth grade! You will lack credibility if you do! Do not talk over people's heads by using terms like "perturbation of the reverberation"! People will tune you out if they can't understand you. I know that I often do! I know how to use a dictionary but don't always have one handy when listening to someone talk. Another thing, don't use slang expressions if you don't know for sure what those expressions mean! Even if you do, your audience might not!