Why can't you write/speak proper?

I’m getting sick and tired of yet another sign of the poor use of the english language by native english speakers. These worrying signs suggest that good english is fast disappearing, and the bad habits are becoming the norm.

Again, I understand that languages evolve, but I’d much rather english evolve in a good way. What I’m witnessing is devolution, and that’s not a good thing.

My latest bug-bear: see/saw/seen

Here’s an example that I just witnessed in a news vox-pop, but which is typical of the spreading problem:

“That’s when I seen the flames.”

ARGH!!!

The correct sentence, my inarticulate countryman is, “That’s when I SAW the flames.”

Let’s get this right. Here’s how the three ways in which the verb “to see” are used:

1. “I see.” (Present tense. Example – “I see the car.”)

2. “I saw.” (Past tense indicative. Example – “I saw the car this morning.”)

3. “I have seen.” (Past tense subjunctive. Example – “I have seen the car many times.”)

So the problem is a confusion between the last two. The basic rule is that if you are talking about something very specific and precise (such as the one car in the second example above), then use “SAW”. If you are talking about something less exact, speculative, or general (such as seeing the car many times) then use “HAVE SEEN”.

Another helpful hint – “seen” will almost NEVER be used without the word HAVE in front of it. So if what you’re about to say would not be correct without the phrase “have seen”, then you probably mean to use “saw”.

Frankly, it’s easy. And I’m sick of people getting it wrong. It’s bad, and only serves to make you sound like a redneck idiot when you get it wrong.

We use signs every day to advise, warn or deter. They’re important. In some cases, the law depends on them. But how many times have we seen signs that make no sense, or are hopelessly ambiguous? Here’s a small collection of a few I’ve stumbled across recently …

To enter or not to enter?

I’d like to see this one tested in a court. It basically allows 24-hour parking, though I suspect that’s not the intention.

Pretty obvious really.

Requires a refined palate.

That’s taking it a little far …

Today I thought I’d drop in a few photos of very public english usage failures …

Finding $50 may at least assist with paying for the tow.

I guess if you’re that big a racist to start with, then you were never going to be the sharpest tool in the shed.

We all thank you.

And one I took myself this morning …

Like any grammar nazi, I get really annoyed when I see very public spelling errors. I get even more annoyed when those errors were introduced deliberately, by some complete numb-nut, as “corrections”. Here are two that got to me this morning. They’re both quite old, and have each been around for years now, but that doesn’t mean I’ve accepted them yet.

Australia is going through something of a political crisis at the moment. We’re in the very sad situation where enough voters were sucked in by a campaign of lies and deceit that a bunch of morons were elected and they are now progressively destroying our nation. The other side of politics, however, is the Australian Labor Party. How the hell am I expected to vote for a party that can’t even spell its own party name right?

And as a Science Fiction fan from my early childhood, I never understood why some dickhead television executive would change the perfectly logical and well-understood SciFi cable channel name to “SyFy”. WTF? What is “siffy”? That means nothing! At least SciFi meant something – we all knew what the channel was for and what programs we could expect from its name. Now? If someone can please explain what a “siffy” is, I’d be most grateful.

Two dumb changes that need to be corrected and changed back. I could vote for the Australian Labour Party, and I’d look forward to many pleasant hours watching Science Fiction on the SciFi channel. But right now, neither get my vote.

Seriously Channel Seven, you need your on-air people to lift their game. Why? Because they are getting LAZY with the English language. In tonight’s Sydney evening news, we had these two clangers:

“Regyully”

“Particyully”

It’s not difficult to pronounce these two words correctly, and it could assist enormously in raising the language skills of your viewership, rather than perpetuate poor English usage. For the record, here’s the pronunciations you should be promoting among your on-air staff:

Regularly = reg-yew-lahr-lee

Particularly = par-tik-yew-lahr-lee

Channel Seven is beginning to appear in this list far too often for my liking. I’ve barely resisted the urge to scream at some of the very basic spelling errors that crop up in their news supers. But tonight’s news including a reporter piece to camera that included one of my pet hate turns  of phrase when she explained that smell:

“… was that big of an indicator of health …” [or similar]

Argh! Bad reporter! Bad english. I hear this often enough among uneducated speakers, but I never thought I’d hear it from a seasoned journalist that I assume has a university degree. Here’s what it should be:

“… was that big an indicator of health …”

One word. One superfluous little word.

I keep offering my linguistic services to Seven, but so far they haven’t taken me up on it. The offer is still open.