Where is English Going?

My children keep telling me that I am getting old and grouchy. When they complain about the house, I do get a little taken aback. They seem to imply that I could do something about its faults. The house is 100 years old. You can probably imagine how much electricity was being used 100 years ago compared to today. So we have ceiling lights and at the most two wall outlets in every room. (Except the kitchen which was totally gutted and redone in 1997 and has more outlets than all the other 15 rooms put together.) I am actually proud of the fact that I had to design how “cable” would enter this house. Most workmen today (who are ridiculously young) almost don’t even know what a plaster wall is – in contrast to a wallboard wall. And guess what? Surprise surprise we don’t have zone heating. The central hall is a very effective chimney that delivers a lot of heat to the second floor. (My kids don’t seem to remember that when they were teens they ran around on the second floor in their hmm hmm but put on winter coats when they came downstairs to eat.)

Today, however, I want to be grouchy about English, not my house. Over the past ten years I have noticed a MAJOR increase in the use of incorrect English, both word meanings and usage. Now even the media are oblivious to the errors they are promulgating. To start I want to zero in on “martyr”. According to my dictionary (Webster’s New World), this word has the following meanings:

1) a person who chooses to suffer or die rather than give up his faith or principles; a person tortured or killed because of his beliefs

2) a person who suffers great pain or misery for a long time.

Now the whole point of this is that the person in question has to be pressured in some way to give up his faith or principles in order to become a martyr. You cannot willingly allow yourself to be killed during some terrorist act and come out being a martyr. NO.

Another word I thought was misused is a little trickier. “Hero.” I thought a hero was someone who puts himself at risk for the benefit of others. But the dictionary provides a different representation of hero.

1) a man of great strength or courage favored by the gods;

2) any man admired for his courage, nobility, or exploits, especially during war;

3) a person admired for his qualities or achievements and regarded as an ideal or model.

During the Presidential Campaign in 2008, Senator McCain was often referred to as a hero. In reading various descriptions of his life, the only item that seemed “heroic” to me was when he refused to be released from prison in Hanoi ahead his compatriots because his father was Commander of the Pacific. Being shot down over Hanoi was not heroic. Flying a plane during the war was his job. And even then I read that he had been ordered to turn around and return to base in South Vietnam so he was actually going against orders when the bad thing happened. But if I stick to the dictionary I guess I would agree that McCain is a hero for staying alive under horrible circumstances, not betraying his country under duress. Being permanently wounded and then coming home and serving his country for the rest of his so far life. Noble qualities and achievement. Yes. But think about other places where this word is cavalierly used.

The third word I worry over is “coward.” This word is certainly misused every day. A coward is not just someone you don’t like. The terrorists who have plagued our world for the last half generation are frightening people, for their values as well as their actions. I can see them being described as sick, or misguided, or even evil. But I don’t see where “coward” comes into it. Again, Webster says a coward is:

1) a person who lacks courage;

2) one easily or excessively frightened by something recognized as dangerous, difficult or painful.

It is not okay to call people we like “heroes” and people we don’t like “cowards”. Find better words.

I also have two longstanding bug-a-boos that are really getting out of control – in newspapers, on TV, on the radio, in movies. Everywhere. The first is the increasing inability of people to distinguish when to use “bring” and when to use “take”. Basically things can only be “brought” toward where you are and “taken” over there where you aren’t. So in other words, if you and I are standing together, I cannot say to you “When you leave for work, don’t forget to bring your lunch.” If you are going from here to work, you are taking your lunch there not bringing it. Now if I happened to be at your place of work and we are talking on the phone, I COULD say “When you leave for work, don’t forget to bring your lunch.” Get it? The more I think about it the more I realize that “bring” is being used more and more and “take” being used less and less. I have spent a lot of time trying to teach people this distinction and it is amazing how difficult it is. You either kind of hear the correct way or you don’t. To those of us for whom this is important, misuse is like nails scratching on a blackboard. And the fact that this error appears more and more in public communication is disturbing.

The other distinction is the difference between “less” and “fewer”. This is getting TOTALLY out of hand. People use “less” all the time and it is spreading like wildfire across the fruited plains. “Less” goes with words that cannot be counted; “fewer” goes with words that can. You cannot say “There are less problems facing teachers now than there were last year.” Since you can count problems, you must say “fewer problems.” Now the word money is tricky. You say “Well you can count money so you should say “fewer money” and that of course is wrong. You can count money but you cannot count the word money, as in one money, two monies. You can count dollars and coins so there you would use fewer.

We need to fix this problem. It makes us sound ignorant. It makes us sound like we don’t care about our language. Many people are demanding that recent immigrants should try harder to learn English. Well, those of us who already speak English had better try harder to keep our language in good condition.