Several months ago, I found a letter from my mother that had been written in the early 1990’s. She passed away in 2003.
I thought my 29-year-old daughter might like to read the letter as a trip down memory lane. I told her who it was from and handed it to her. She took one look at it and said, “I can’t read this. It is written in cursive.”
That got me up on my verbal and written skills soapbox, which is now spilling onto the page of this fine publication.
I should share that my mother, born in 1924, was a speech major in college. My brother, sister and I were in for a lifetime of using the English language correctly. We also had to know how to set a table perfectly, serve from the left and clear from the right and empty ashtrays when my parents held dinner parties. I’ll save those tidbits for another time.
My wife and I actually have two 29-year-old daughters who are fraternal twins. Our home was a gathering place for the girls and their friends all the way through high school. In fact, it continues today as we host showers and birthday parties where their millennial minions are in attendance.
Allow me to get up on that aforementioned soapbox for a moment in memory of my mother as I regurgitate (sorry) some observations of the next generations’ use of our language.
#1. Me and him. Me and her. Me and them. The “Me ands” drive me nuts. Since when do we put ourselves first in a sentence? “She and I” works. “He and I” works. “Me and she” does not! Just because we love ourselves most does not justify putting oneself first in sentences.
#2. Adverbs. “He was hurt bad.” No, he wasn’t! He was hurt badLY. Verbs (hurt) are described by adverbs, which almost always end in LY. You need to take this serious! Really? Wouldn’t you rather have me take it seriousLY?
#3. Further vs. Farther. OK, I don’t get so upset about this one, but it isn’t hard once you know the rule. You really just need to remember that farther measures physical distance. Would you like me to discuss this issue with you further or farther? Would you like to crumple up this article and throw it farther or further?
#4. Effect vs. Affect. Effect is a noun usually meaning how something was changed. What effect did that prescription have on your pain? Affect is usually a verb. How did that drug affect your pain? Is reading this affecting the way you will use these words in the future?
I think it was fifth grade when my best friend and I were learning how to diagram sentences. Me and him (you caught this, right?) would slouch in our seats when the teacher asked someone to identify a dangling participle in a sentence. To this day I’m not sure what a participle is, let alone one that dangles. The teacher would go on to ask what the object of the preposition was. My object in class was Carol Samuelson, for whom I had a proposition, not a preposition. My teacher would not have found this amusing.
I will dangle one more “mom” item before you in closing. She made all three of us take two years of Latin in high school. Latin is a dead language. Well, kind of dead. It is still the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. What we kids found out was that Latin was the root language of all the Romance languages. From that point on, I could deduce the meanings of words not often used in daily language but frequently used in books and articles. I aced every vocabulary test henceforth.
I fully realize the grammar police may scrutinize every sentence written herein. I am exonerated of guilt since the editorial staff of the OTMJ have given their blessing (and corrections) before publication. Don’t get your colons and semicolons all twisted up looking for errors.
P.S. Cursive writing was an art form for hundreds of years. It is now being buried as each member of the Baby Boomers is boxed and lowered. Rest in peace.
