May I order some "American English?"

This complaint is not about a poorly written television script, but I couldn’t resist a departure from that topic.  A short segment on the local news last evening told of a North Carolina restaurant owner who had posted a sign forbidding service to those who do not speak English.

The shameless boldness of the proprietor is stunning enough.  His obtuseness is made worse by his display of ignorance of foreign languages and his own so-called “American English.”

The sign attempts to tell customers, in six languages, that they are not welcome if they don’t speak English.  Two of the languages, Russian and Irish Gaelic, I don’t know enough about to critique the restaurant owner’s rendering of them.  However, here are the attempts to inform speakers of French, German, Spanish, and “American,” with his helpful parenthetic explanations:

N parler français, pas de service.

(French)

Kein Deutsch sprechen.  Kein service.

(German)

No hablar español.  Sin servicio.

(Spanish)

Wrong, wrong, wrong!  That the printed texts utilize the cedilla and the tilde (Also, the Russian text appears in Cyrillic characters.) leads me to assume that the sign maker used an online translator—Not a reliable translation method.

            But here is the best: 

No speak English.  No Service

(American English)

The restaurant owner has now removed the sign, after much criticism.  He says that he posted it in frustration after a group of Spanish-speaking patrons had difficulty ordering.  We don’t expect the guy to have a translator on staff, but at least he could get a better command of his own language!

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/03/16/speak-english-service-sign-removed-north-carolina-restaurant/

Me, Myself, and I

Thanks to all of you who sent me comments about my first post in this space.  It is clear that we are assaulted by enough grammar gaffes to keep us fighting the battle against them for a long time to come.

Some errors we love to hate are:

“Me and her both like the same guy.”

 “…between you and I…”

 “To sign up, please talk to Bob or myself.”

Me, myself, and I…  Each of these first person pronouns deserves a good look.  Just for fun, I’d like to focus first on the slyest one: “myself.”  Sly, because some people think it sounds right, and somehow better than “I” or “me.”

Here are some excruciatingly wrong uses of the reflexive pronoun.

  I have already cited Al Roker’s barbaric boo-boo:

   “Yeah, it’s annoying—Just like myself.”

Commented another Weather Channel expert,

  “That would give meteorologists grey hair—including myself.”

A news anchor on CNBC announced that Alan Greenspan had had

“an exclusive interview yesterday with myself…”

(Now that would be tricky!)

What has happened to little “me”?  It seems that some people have the mistaken notion that using “myself” sounds more sophisticated or scholarly.  Possibly, avoiding the use of “me” deflects the focus away from a self-conscious speaker. But it’s wrong. For the sentences above, “including me,” “like me,” “by sending me,” and “with me” are correct and sound perfectly right. 

           

Here’s one more ear-punisher from a scripted drama:

“You are genetically predisposed to compete against other women for the attention of strong men like myself.” 

Using “myself” this way not only sounds silly, it is grammatically wrong. All of these speakers and writers surely learned in school that “myself” is a reflexive pronoun. Its purpose is to refer to the subject of the phrase, as in “I did it myself” or “I feel sorry for myself.” Sometimes the subject needs to be put into the spotlight—“I myself don’t like these macaroons.”  The word “myself” could be omitted and the sentence would still make sense. The added reflexive pronoun highlights the fact that the speaker doesn’t like the cookies.  (“I myself don’t like these macaroons, because I hate coconut.  But my wife loves them.”)  Notice that “myself” is not replacing “I” or “me.”

Let’s discourage the use of the word “myself” where it doesn’t belong.  The English language is complicated enough as it is.

The English Language-- Death by Writing?

Television writers—the people who create the dialogue spoken by actors-- are murdering the English language.  I’m not talking about people who blather away on reality shows or chitchat with each other on news programs, although there are some killer grammar gaffes that come from them. Anyone who vocalizes on camera is liable to torture the tongue.  When people must think fast and talk at the same time, they make mistakes. Just this morning, The Weather Channel’s Stephanie Abrams said,

“…up in the Northeast, right where me and Al are…”

This unscripted, unrehearsed utterance is painful enough.  She and Al Roker (who recently said, “Yeah, it’s annoying—Just like myself.”) are people, who in their line of work, ad lib on air. It’s not easy to remember language rules and to use them all the time.  But it would be wise for these professionals to know correct grammar and to practice using it consistently, so that such atrocities do not issue forth at work. Ms. Abrams, especially, would benefit from some grammar lessons, as she seems to have been napping during English class.

But speaking proper English and writing proper English are two different efforts. Those who have grammar lapses in speaking aloud may sometimes be forgiven. Instead, I refer to those who actually think about what their characters are going to say and put it in writing.  It is in scripted television—dramas and situation comedies, for example—that bad English should not be spoken by good characters.  The evil offenders are television writers who craft the faulty sentences that actors then must deliver.  (Do actors ever say, “This grammar is terrible! My character wouldn’t say that!”?)

Let’s look at some examples of just one type of crime: reflexive pronoun abuse.  Here are bits of dialogue from scripted television programs:

·         “Do I seem like the kind of person who can’t laugh at themselves?” 

female character on an ABC Family program

·         “No one is pinching themselves more than I am.”

 female character on a CBS drama

            Why is this a problem?  Children, English language learners, and grammar-deficient teenagers and adults think that what they hear on TV is right.  We copy what we hear.  Poor scriptwriting is teaching poor grammar.

            The writers could have penned,

 “Do I seem like the kind of person who can’t laugh at herself?”

“No one is pinching herself more than I am.”

In both cases, it was clear that the speaker was in need of a feminine pronoun.  What were those writers thinking? 

I hear mauled grammar on television every day.  Some of it just happens, but much of it is written and passed off as “screenwriting.” It misleads and mis-educates.  It can be prevented.  I invite you to share the phrases that give you pain.  Please quote exactly, and cite the type of show on which you heard it and the character who said it.

 Violence and sex on TV are objectionable.  So is bad grammar!  It’s killing our English language.