USING PROPER GRAMMAR

There is a wonderful blog...much of it geared to seniors, but not only to them, called TIME GOES BY. On Tuesday, Crabby Old Lady wrote a grammar rant. I saw no way to respond or add to her invitation for more examples. Annoying for those of us who pride ourselves in using correct grammar is that if more people (than not) use a word incorrectly, the keepers of the most-used dictionaries change the meaning to the incorrect usage. It is like the dumbing-down that our media tends to do do often. Media personalities seem never to be corrected for their misuse of grammar, not even accuracy of facts.

It used to be that if you said you were nauseous, it meant: 1 : causing nausea or disgust : nauseating. 2 : affected with nausea or disgust. Today Merriam Webster uses that meaning as 'causing' but also uses 'affected with', giving in to those who couldn't say I feel nauseated.

Chris Matthews uses 'ethnic' instead of 'race' which I find annoying even though I have written the correction to MSNBC. Clearly, no one in the media really cares for accuracy enough to correct the loudmouths who spout opinions, frequently wrong in facts as well as grammar.

Another frequently used pair of words are 'affect' and 'effect'.
A simple way to remember these is that affect is a verb; effect is a noun. (picture from Grammar Girl)

Marketers and ad people seem to have some of the worst grammar as do lyric writers who want to make words fit a rhyme. 'New Improved', while often an oxymoron, should be 'newly improved' if I remember what I was taught. To give the reader an even more accurate reading it might even be 'most recently improved' since some companies keep improving (or should that be 'recently changed')?

There are those who 'could care less' (hear the chalk scraping on the blackboard on that one) when it originally meant “it is impossible for me to have less interest or concern in this matter, since I am already utterly indifferent”.

When I say, "It is I" in response to "Who is there?", people look at me as though I'm a freak who doesn't know how to say "It's me!" That says nothing (on a side note) to the person who answers, on the phone, to 'with whom am I speaking?' with "It's me" in a voice you could swear you have never heard before. Not to be confused with an equally annoying habit of some who answer to "Where are you?" with "I'm here." This forces me to ask, "Where is here?"

When asked how I am, I love saying, "I'm good", realizing that people think I am saying I am well. Oh well, I'm well, and still drawing water from the well of life's enjoyment.