Monday, May 7, 2012

The case for proper language

So here's how the argument started. "If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?" was going on the radio and I commented on the use of the conditional and how in those days songs contained proper grammar. This led to the question of if there were any songs which were grammatically incorrect. I said "Of course, I' a huge fan of Bruno Mars but what about 'Had your eyes wide open, why was they open'?"

It turns out that I'm a stickler for convention. While I understand that all my writings are not grammatically perfect, I can at least comfort myself in the thought that I try to write proper. Here's my question. Is it wrong to expect proper language?

A common language is the communication platform for people. Imagine when humanoids first got the speech. One would have pointed at a tree and said "Booboo"(Yes very yogi bear!). Another would have said "twheee". (I'm just improvising here.) And to the first person who thought of a tree as Booboo, twhee would have sounded like gibberish. But somewhere along the evolutionary way, common words evolved and common languages evolved.  And basic rules and protocols were laid down so that anyone who knew the rules would understand what another person was saying.

My husband dearly argues that language is a living thing. And that just like any other aspect of civilisation, languages must also change to reflect the current society they are being used by. That is true and there is not a speck of a doubt. But then he also thinks that all man made conventions are artificial and that man must be let free to run amok. (Run amok was what I said. What he said was that civilisation itself was artificial and that man must be free of all ties of convention, at which point laws of nature will fall into place and everything will run smoothly and that I need not unnecessarily worry about the fate of man in a lawless society).

What confuses me is (As a person who tries to  never use "LOL") how difficult is it really to say "I don't and he doesn't and not "I doesn't and he don't"?

We need not speak like Shakespeare. But how about speaking without the use of a whole lot of acronyms, mixing up singular and plural and many other little grammatical faux pas? I do realise some will be angered by this post. But this is the way I feel and truthfully, why not go back to the basics for a change?

2 comments:

  1. Good post but I am ok with acronyms and abbreviations. They are not wrong grammar.

    ReplyDelete

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