Back in the Dark Ages, when I was still in the world of academe, I enjoyed working with my students to improve their writing skills. I found that most of them equated words that in reality have differing meanings. Notable examples are the three words, “believe,” “feel” and “think,” which may seem to be synonyms, but, actually, each connotes a different level of affirmation.
People might say, “I believe it is raining,” or “I feel like going to the movies,” but in such cases, the speakers are amalgamating the meanings of different words. To facilitate the students’ understanding of the words’ nuances, I would give them my own simple rule of thumb, which said, “Tell God what you believe. Tell your doctor how you feel. Tell me what you think.”
Another evidence of the changing linguistic patterns is the modern evolution of the way we describe unintended consequences. When I was coming along, we described such occurrences as being, “by accident.”
Until the B.E.s were in school, I had not perceived any variance, but now “on accident” seems to be the common parlance. Recently, I was speaking with two young professional ladies, who appeared to be in the same age bracket as the B.E.s. When I heard both using the phrase, “on accident,” I remarked that they were dating themselves, as my generation continues to say “by accident,” or at least I do.
Pronunciation is not an idiomatic or grammatical construction, but it does make for a regional distinction. At the conclusion of an introductory history lecture, I inquired of the class if anyone had any questions about the material we had covered. A student raised her hand and said, “Ah kint unnerstan you. You tauk phunny.” When I asked if she thought what I had been saying was funny amusing or funny peculiar, she replied “cuelyer.”
The arrival of the rock music era also brought with it what might be called an assault on traditional grammatical usage. I still cringe when the radio plays the song, “Light My Fire” by The Doors. In one line of it, Jim Morrison sings “If I was to say to you,” an early indication that the subjunctive mood was passing into history. Instead, he had belted out, “If I ‘were’ to say to you,” English teachers might have had an easier time explaining the subjunctive to their pupils.
In one of his inaugural addresses as governor of Alabama, Fob James spoke of the importance of government’s role in fostering education. He concluded his speech by noting that the place to begin reforming education in the state was “with you and I,” thereby voicing a requiem for the objective case. He was better at football, “Roll Tide, Roll.”
To one of his predecessors as governor of Alabama, Bibb Graves, has been ascribed the coining of the phrase that the task before his administration was “to keep on keeping on.” Now, nearly a century later, he is remembered in popular culture more for that than for his politics.
The Hollywood producer, Samuel Goldwyn, the partner of Louis B. Mayer, who founded M.G.M. studios, emigrated to the U.S. from his native Warsaw, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. Aside from his great films, he is remembered for his English phraseology.
Perhaps his most famous retort came when he was asked whether he would be attending an event, and he replied, “Include me out.” That brief sentence has become iconic in the American English lexicon, causing speculation that his many alleged malaprops were planned, written and orchestrated by his movie script writers.
A professor I knew often said, ”Physics is fun.” Language is too.
