Call me old fashioned. Call me a curmudgeon. Call me William Safire’s secret son if you wish. But I’m fed up with Hollywood. No, this isn’t about Liberal bias. In fact, Barbara Streisand might even support me on this. Maybe even Alec Baldwin. The subject of this rant is sloppy grammar!
I just can’t take it anymore. It’s a worse plague than Creeping Socialism! It’s not enough that Country Western singers, rappers and NASCAR drivers practice this black art……….now it’s the official language of TV. “Me and my friend did this…….” “Her and me did that…….”
Watch for it the next time you watch your favorite TV show. (Reality shows don’t count here.) It’s built into the scripts. OK………..it’s no big deal if the street punk that just got arrested on Law and Order can’t put two words together to form a grammatically correct sentence. That’s just the way it is with semi-literate street punks. But the police Captains, and the Assistant District Attorneys, and the defense lawyers…………..they should know better. But the writers are writing sloppy-grammar scripts. Probably on purpose. People that make their living from language are perpetuating the destruction of that which feeds them. It’s insanity.
Recently, I’ve begun watching reruns of Matlock on our local family station (KSBI). Witnesses get on the stand to testify………..”Can you identify that person?”……….”Yes, it was she.” Writer’s used to respect the King’s English. Even secondary characters spoke with correct grammar. Nominative Case Abuse was simply not tolerated.
In past decades we’ve seen public pressure on Hollywood to produce TV shows that showed less drinking. And that showed everybody (even the bad guys) using their seat belts. Why? Because it’s in the public interest to stay sober and to buckle up. But it’s also in the public interest to exhibit high standards in other things. Such as language. Using sloppy language is a slippery slope that leads to hell in a hand basket.
No kidding…….break a rule here……..break a Commandment there……break a law…….soon there’s just no difference. The standards of language are the front lines of social decline. (I know I need to switch to decaf, but all this just really jerks my chain.) With language, we have the opportunity every hour of every day to choose between high standards and low standards. It’s a discipline that crosses over into other areas of life.
Where is Henry Higgins when you need him?
