In three words:
Listen to tv
It's not just commercials that butcher English grammar.
Some of the worst offenses are heard on the news by the people being interviewed and by the so-called reporters and anchors.
Caveat. I am a former print "journalist" and current curmudgeon. I never went to "J-school" (journalism school). I write "journalist" in quotes since I was for many years "just" a reporter and for some years after those, an editor. To me, a "journalist" keeps a journal - electronically, a "blog." (Maybe now I AM a "journalist" and can shed the quote marks.)
IN ANY EVENT, when I was young and cigarettes were advertised on tv, there was a commercial for Winston cigarettes. The commercial had a person saying
Winston tastes good like a cigarette should
and then an English grammarian corrected
AS a cigarette should
Since then, English being a living language, like has become acceptable.
I would say that the language has gone to the birds - specifically, the Fowlers. Henry Watson and his brother Francis The brothers took a casual approach to the rules of English grammar, apparently believing if it felt good, do it. Forbidding fractured phrasing and dangling participles were not for Mrs. Fowler's boys. (I follow Harvard/University of Chicago, and the US Government Printing Office grammar rules and, in general, the AP Stylebook of c 1970.)
Today's particular rant is prompted by a supposedly educated person who sounded as if she had English as her native language but who apparently slept through grammar classes in grammar (a/k/a primary or grade) school.
Her offense: Not knowing when to use "I" vs. "me."
I managed to erase the exact words of her blunder from my mind, but the way to avoid the error - a very simple technique - needs to be shared.
If you have a sentence in which you and another are going something, say the sentence as if you were doing whatever it is alone.
Bob and I went to the store becomes I went to the store.
It's elementary, Watson.
My Spouse, who has English as her fourth language, cringes when she hears very unique - something either is unique - one of a kind - or it is not. Unique should not be modified. I'd like to write "Unique cannot be modified," but some people do it; it's wrong, but it is done.
The U.S. Defense Department for a time used comic books to educate the men and women in the military, which may account for some of us saying we spent time in a Mickey Mouse outfit.
Over vs. More than
One thing leads to another.
While poking around the Internet to see if "Micky Mouse" was trademarked or copyrighted, I read on a Wikipedia page He (Mickey Mouse) went on to appear in over 130 films, including . . .
Wiki contributors are not necessarily grammarians; obviously this particular writer followed the Fowlers.
Over means above; good grammar is "over the heads" of many writers. The blimp (which is not, by-the-by the same as a dirigible) floated over the stadium.
More than - which is what the contributor probably intended, means a quantity as "2 is more than (or "greater than") 1."
I never did satisfy my curiosity regarding the rodent's name status.
As long as people are able to use the excuse that "English is a living language" I can expect to continue taking blood pressure medicine.
