Friday, January 29, 2010

Speak Easy Note #19 - Does Saying It Correctly Really Matter?

Since I introduced the dog topic last week, I got myself in the mood and comfortable with opening the door to address three communication pet peeves of mine. The question though is,


Does it really matter if people use language correctly?

1. Is there any big disadvantage gained from using the personal pronoun “I” when the grammatically correct form to use in a particular sentence is the personal pronoun “me” instead?


INCORRECT USAGE EXAMPLES:
“It is imperative that you get this information to the Vice President and I before the end of this meeting.”
“I hope you will be going with John and I to the big event this week.”

2. Does it even matter if someone says their, they or them when the person who is the antecedent for all of these third-person plural personal pronouns is singular?

INCORRECT USAGE EXAMPLES:
“I will ask the person if they are okay with our giving their seat away."
One of the students must have left their lunch under the table yesterday.”


3. And, really, who cares if someone splits an infinitive, the form of the verb that begins with “to” (to eat, to sleep, to talk, etc.), by sticking an adverb in the middle of the two-word infinitive? After all, this has definitely become accepted common usage.

INCORRECT USAGE EXAMPLES
"He decided to sloppily finish filling in the form so that at least he could say he had submitted it."
"I’m going to quickly eat my dinner so I can get to the theater before 8:00 PM."



I see that my worshipful attention to good language usage and my desire for people to correct these careless habits may be unnecessary and beyond what many other people think or observe! Writing about these pet peeves reminds me of a wonderful story about Winston Churchill who had a secretary who constantly rewrote and edited many of the sentences he had eloquently written because he had ended some of his sentences with prepositions. He wrote her a note asking her to refrain from changing the sentences that he cared about. (She would have changed the sentence I just wrote to, “He wrote her a note asking her to refrain from changing the sentences about which he cared.”) This is what he wrote to her to let her know that he would not stand for what she was doing to his words: “This is something up with which I will not put?” Churchill on Prepositions

Even though Churchill chose to go against correct usage when it comes to ending sentences and phrases with prepositions, I will agree that Churchill knew exactly what he was talking about. (Please note the preposition at the end of my last sentence.) Sentences sound much better, make more sense and have a better flow when the prepositions at the end of a phrase are left where they fall naturally – even if incorrectly at the end of a sentence.

I will defend my pet peeves, however, and demonstrate the choice of correct usage for each of them. Here’re the reasons why:

1. Even though I have heard well-educated and respected community/political leaders, communication professionals, friends and family all make mistakes like these INCORRECT USAGE EXAMPLES:

“It is imperative that you get this information to the Vice President and I before the end of this meeting.”
“I hope you will be going with John and I to the big event this week.”

I know these same people would never say:

“It is imperative that you get this information to I before the end of this meeting.”
“I hope you will be going with I to the big event this week.”


Instead they would naturally and correctly say:

“It is imperative that you get this information to me before the end of this meeting.”
“I hope you will be going with me to the big event this week.”



And so I will stick with recommending the correct usage which is:

“It is imperative that you get this information to the Vice President and me before the end of this meeting.
“I hope you will be going with John and me to the big event this week.”


Since people know exactly when to say “I” and when to say “me” without the word “and” and without the partnered connection to someone else … “John and me” or “Mary and I” – I am totally baffled about what causes this frequent, blatant and obvious mistake that is so easy to know how to avoid!



2. “THEY” “THEIR” “THEM”:


It is obvious that these words all are plural and would only be used correctly in relation to more than one individual. This is so clear and simple, and easy to defend.



INCORRECT USAGE EXAMPLES:
“I will ask the person if they are okay with our giving their seat away.”
“One of the students must have left their lunch under the table yesterday.”

CORRECT OPTIONS:
“I will ask the person if he or she is okay with our giving his or her seat away.”
“I will ask the person if he is okay with our giving his seat away.”
“I will ask the person if she is okay with our giving her seat away.”
“I will ask the woman if she is okay with our giving her seat away.”
“I will ask the man if he is okay with our giving his seat away.”
(Notice that if the sentence starts with man or woman, we would almost never say "they" or "their" and yet if it starts with "person", we often choose incorrectly the plural pronoun "they" or "their".)

“One of the students must have left his or her lunch under the table yesterday.”
“One of the students must have left her lunch under the table yesterday.”
“One of the students must have left his lunch under the table yesterday.”


3. Lastly - The infamous split infinitive:



INCORRECT USAGE EXAMPLES:
"He decided to sloppily finish filling in the form so that at least he could say he had submitted it."
I’m going to quickly eat my dinner so I can get to the theater before 8:00 PM.

CORRECT USAGE EXAMPLES:
"He decided to finish filling in the form sloppily so that at least he could say he had submitted it."
"I’m going to eat my dinner quickly so I can get to the theater before 8:00 PM."


The most compelling defense for avoiding the split infinitive is to think of the infinitive as a cohesive combined verb unit that is always made up of two words, the first word of the pair always being “to”.


In many spoken languages, the infinitive form of the verb is one word and can never be split for that reason: to eat = manger in French, = comer in Spanish.

I rest my three cases.  This has been my defense for my three pet peeves.

So, I ask you again,

Does it really matter if people use language correctly?



I surely know that in the grand scheme of communication, it cannot matter very much if you always use the correct personal pronoun. What meaningful impact could there possibly be if you use third-person plural pronouns when referring to a single individual? And who really cares if you split a two-word infinitive with an adverb? Really! Who cares?

If only my answers to these rhetorical questions were in line with this indifference and disregard for the importance of correct usage. You can see from my writing here that, indeed, it matters a good deal to me, even though I have not referred at all to any of these three pet peeves in my book,  SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success available through Word Craft Press. There is an elegance to speaking and writing that I care about deeply and so I have shared these with you like Johnny Appleseed who travelled across America planting apple seeds. Who knows? Maybe my planted seeds will be fruitful. Spread the word. Certainly, I feel terrific satisfaction from having laid this out so thoughtfully and thoroughly.

May your new awareness of the correct way to say these components of language enhance your communication and add to your ability to SPEAK EASY!

Until next time,
The Wordsmith

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