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.
