Full of compliments, missing complements

As far as grammatical errors go, one of the funniest I can recall was in a job ad for a newspaper. One would think that to be among the top two or three places to expect perfect grammar (though I am sure many outside of the business would say they are not surprised at all, given what they've seen in print over the years).

But there it was, for all to see — and probably not noticed by most who read it — a strange request: "Wanted: reporter to compliment three-person newsroom."

I wanted to email them and tell them how great they were.

Right now, as I post this, there are 102 examples, some in prominent papers, where someone got it wrong and others missed it in the correction stage.

compliment: My, you look lovely today.

complement: That color complements your eyes.

There have been complaints. There's no mistake about that

There's an awful trend which should have been nipped in the bud a long time ago. It's regarding sloppy verbal usage of "there is (or there's)" and "there are" and its effect on the written language.

The movie title There's something about Mary shows the correct usage. There is something about her.

But the sentence "there's things about Mary I don't like" is wrong. Think about it: would you write "there is things about Mary I don't like"? Of course not. There are things about her we don't like.

Yet, thanks to laziness, apathy and no one standing up for the language, it is increasingly more common to see such errors.

Check out Google News at any time to see dozens of examples of improper use of today's subject.

(And yes, in quoting someone for a news story some minor correcting of grammar is acceptable -- but I would wager it's just laziness, not journalistic integrity, for so many of the errors you will see when you click that link above)

There's no debate

Yes, rock 'n' roll, rap music and other fads or trends embraced by youth have been pronounced at various times over the years as a sign of the end. Those cries were, as it turns out, premature, but count me as one of those who believes text messaging is the beginning of the end for the English language.

There really can be no doubt that text messaging will finish the job started by advertising copy writers. But there's always someone who plays devil's advocate.

Enter TXTNG: THE GR8 DB8.

"Faced with a new kind of communication problem . . . people all over the world have set about solving it . . . not by inventing a new language but by adapting old language to suit the new medium," David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales and author of said book, tells the Times of London. His book essentially argues that, much like the hula hoop, we have nothing to fear from digital shorthand.

If I could make a tidy sum out of such a book, I might make a similar argument, too. But I would be wrong.

Don't be a looser

A few years ago (and if I can dig it up I will post it) I wrote a column headlined "Don't be a looser." A contributor to the paper said his heart stopped when he saw what he assumed was an error, but was quite pleased once he read my rant.

It's one of those errors that drives me insane -- misspelling "loser" -- and I believe the Internet, allowing 12-year-olds to post whatever is on their mind on a bulletin board, is responsible for its perpetuation.

But the Internet can be used for good as well as evil, and a website I found today is an example of that. Thankfully someone has spent their own time and money to post a permanent reminded of the proper use of the two words. Check out Losers spell it "looser".

Time to fight back against the slaughter of English

Some argue the language is constantly changing or, perhaps more correctly, evolving. It was only a few decades ago that we were still taught to write to-night and to-morrow, so one can imagine the consternation of a guardian of English when the hyphen was first dropped and the tonight and tomorrow became common usage.

Generally, the hyphen will eventually be dropped from an oft-used hyphenated word, and many people can accept that. Some argue that if you can see that one day the hyphen is going to be dropped, why use it in the first place (video-tape would be one example), especially in our rapidly changing world.

But things really are different today. With the lack of proper English teaching in elementary schools -- remember phonics? -- kids are being told it's okay to write incorrectly as long as there's enough information there for a reader to decipher the meaning. Text-messaging shortcuts creeping into everyday writing. It's no wonder more and more people are fighting back.

Take the current use of the word "anniversary," for example. How often is it used correctly these days? For the past decade its proper usage has slipped, as young people eager to celebrate a milestone in their relationship, talk about their "one-week anniversary" together rather than saying "we've been together for a week." From that forgivable slip by love-struck teens it has grown into common usage. Not willing to wait for anything anymore, it is common to hear "one-month anniversary" and "six-month anniversary." Heck, so many people (and this is in print or on TV) have forgotten the proper usage that it is now common to hear those who don't understand the word say "one-year anniversary."

Even worse, this morning I hear Evan Solomon on a CBC broadcast say "13th year anniversary" while promoting a segment on the end of the Bosnian War. If we have prominent broadcasters (on what is supposed to be a top-quality network) bastardizing the language, what hope is there of ever correcting the problem?