60. Who is this?

The phone rang yesterday morning.

“Hello Mr Wilton.  This is Virgin Media Customer Service.  How are you?”

“I’m very well, thank you.  How are you?”

“I’m good.”

“What at?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are you good at?”

This use of ‘good’ to mean ‘well’ is a fairly recent innovation and it’s come from America.  It’s horrible but I’m sorry to say that both Caroline and I occasionally would say it in Cayman where the American ‘culture’ dominates everything.

Later yesterday morning I had to ring Virgin Media to clarify something the lady who was ‘good’ had told me.

“Is that Virgin?” I asked.

“Yes.  Who’s this?”

“I expect you’re the person on the Virgin switchboard,” I told her, helpfully.

“No.  I mean who IS this?”

“I’ve no idea,” I said.  “You’ll have to give me a clue.”

A few weeks ago I was in a pub when I overheard a man at the bar say to his companion:

“I could care less about the Royal Wedding.” 

This is another Americanism we often heard in Cayman and it means the complete opposite of what the speaker intends it to mean.  Why didn’t he say that he ‘couldn’t care less’ like an Englishman?

I am retired.  I no longer work.  While Caroline is out at work I do exactly as I please and I am often very pleased to do very little. 

Just as during the first year or so I was in Cayman when I would set myself the target of not having my first alcoholic drink of the day until my gin and tonic at 5:00 p.m., I now won’t watch television until 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon (unless there’s a test match being played of course).

The other day I was half paying attention to an early evening game show on ITV.  A contestant who had earlier told the host, Bradley Walsh, that he had lived for some time in Hong Kong, was asked a question about Chinese food and got it wrong.

“Was you ever in a Chinese when you was in Hong Kong?”  the host asked.

That woke me up.

I’m not a zealot about grammar.  I often speak ungrammatically and I’m sure that I sometimes write that way too – but really!  It was half past five and there would have been children watching.

A popular song that I hate above all other popular songs is “Light my Fire” written by The Doors and subsequently recorded by Jose Felciano and Will Young among others.

There’s nothing wrong with the tune.  It’s melodic and quite memorable.  It’s these lyrics that I can’t stand:

You know that it would be untrue

You know that I would be a liar

If I was to say to you

Girl, we couldn't get much higher.

Even that nice and supposedly well-educated Will Young sings, “If I was to say to you.”

The subjunctive mood is used to express a wish, a possibility or an action that has not yet occurred.  Saying something about the future such as, “Girl, we couldn't get much higher,” has to use the subjunctive and so it must be,

 “If I WERE to say to you”.

Another song that has this fault is the one that begins, “If you were the only girl in the world.”  Nothing wrong with that but most singers follow that line with, “And I WAS the only boy’ and it always grates with me.

There are some misuses of English that are so ingrained now that there is no hope anymore that they will ever be put right.  Because we all seem to have surrendered, I will list them without comment:

LESS when it should be FEWER

DIFFERENT TO instead of DIFFERENT FROM

DISINTERESTED when he/she means UNINTERESTED

COMPARED TO instead of COMPARED WITH

ALRIGHT instead of ALL RIGHT

ONTO instead of ON TO

Those uses that were once definite errors in spoken or written English are now almost acceptable. 

Accuracy in grammar is going the way of table manners.  What’s the point of trying to instil table manners in children who never eat a meal at a table at home?  One of my last memories as a teacher was of standing next to two 13 year-old boys while they ate their school lunch of roast lamb, potato and carrots using only a spoon.  Neither of them had ever used a knife and fork!

“Me” and “I” are two words that are often used wrongly.  The most common problem is when people think that using “I” instead of “me” makes them sound posher or perhaps better educated.  Unfortunately it will sometimes have the opposite effect from the one intended.

There is an advertisement running on television at the moment that ends with the voiceover saying, “and the result was a holiday for my wife and I.”

The Headteacher at the school I taught at would get it wrong so often and so regularly that I used to think that perhaps he did it deliberately.  He has an MA and so presumably he is literate.

One evening I was at a Senior Staff meeting chaired by the Head.  The “meeting” as usual consisted of a series of short lectures from the Head.  There was little discussion.  About twenty of us sat there bored rigid, watching the minute hand on the clock moving slower and slower.

Abruptly I was awoken with a start.  Just as in the same way you become aware of the hum of the spin dryer only when it suddenly stops, I was suddenly fully conscious and alert as I heard him say, “ ….. give the completed forms to Mrs Ketlass or I.”

“Will what?” I asked perkily.

Some people sniggered but he looked at me with a look of total incomprehension and as if I were/was (take your pick) bonkers.