Chances are, if you are reading this newspaper you are a proud member of the grammar police. In fact, we are all grammar police. Ain’t that right?
Nearly everyone I know takes real satisfaction in finding the errors of others and pointing them out with a satisfied smirk. Or else they get so furious at someone for misusing apostrophes — think a classified ad boasting “Worlds Best Copy Editor’s For Hire”— that they’ll call them up just to berate them.
“Editor’s what? Tiny brain?!”
Trust me, I know — I work in the newspaper business. This may sound hard to believe, but once in a blue moon an error will slip into our paper. OK, a white moon. Whatever.
But whooo boy, some people sure like to let us know about it when we do miss one. Thanks, guys!
But hey, while we’re on the subject, I’d like to make myself feel good by pointing out someone else’s bad grammar. There’s a host on TSN who in most regards is very good at his job, but I can barely watch him anymore because he pronounces the word “the” as “thee,” no matter what the situation.
“Lebron James drives into thee lane, scores thee hoop and draws thee foul.”
Just listening to it makes me want to throw thee television out thee window. It’s thee worst.
I pointed this out to my wife and she found this hilarious. Not the part about thee TSN guy, but rather the fact that I had the gall to criticize anyone for their pronunciation of the word “the.”
Did I actually know the rule for the word “the,” she asked. The one that says you should pronounce it as “thee” when it comes before a word beginning with a vowel sound?
Yes, of course I know that one, I said with all the confidence of a lion tamer trying out an all-bacon hat.
My wife laughed, and then destroyed my world. She said she’d never, in the 13 years that we’ve known each other, heard me use the “thee” form of the word correctly.
Not only that, but she notices it every single time I mispronounce it and it drives her mad, particularly given the fact that I am the main English language example for our two children because she speaks to them in French. My mispronunciation, and its couth-killing potential for our children, makes her want to grab me by thee ears and throw me into thee ocean.
Now, being a parent can make people question a lot of things about themselves that they’ve never even thought about before.
How would you react to coming upon a crib shared by a sleeping child and a whole bunch of poop? Why did I make these life choices? Could I make it to the Mexican border before anyone realized I was gone?
But the alarming question — or should I say thee alarming question — raised by the “the” controversy at my house hit me as hard as I can remember being hit, causing me to revisit everything I knew about myself.
Do I speak like an uneducated hick? And, worse yet, am I teaching my kids to speak like uneducated hicks?
I did, after all, grow up in a small Alberta town. These days we all know that province as an urbane, socialist paradise, but older generations will remember that is was once rural redneck country.
My concerns grew when I listened to my four-year-old son tell a story. He has an adorable way of speaking that is punctuated by thoughtful pauses, a lot of drawn out maybeeees, and ending many of his words with aaaaaa.
“Maybeeeee-aaa, the-aaaaa seaplane we saw when we were at the park was-aaaaaa, flying to-aaaaa, Africa.”
It’s incredibly adorable. But a couple of days ago I was listening to a recording of one of my newspaper interviews and heard myself ask the subject to send me a photo thusly: “If you-aaaaa, could have something to me by morning, that would be-aaaaaa, great.”
Less adorable, and alarming enough that I actually went back to interviews I did five years ago to see what my diction and grammar was like. There were lots of un-thoughtful pauses, lots of ums — I guess there’s a reason I didn’t go into radio — but not nearly as many aaaaaas.
So I don’t really know what the answer is. I mean thee answer. Maybe my children are influencing the way I speak as much as I am influencing them. They, in fact, seem to have a better grasp of the “thee” rule than I do — I’ve heard them both use it correctly. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.
Of course, I’ve heard them both spend an entire day finishing every one of their sentences with the word poop — sometimes in a completely grammatically incorrect way — so we’ll just call it even at this point.
Andy Prest is the North Shore News sports editor and writes a biweekly humour/lifestyle column. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
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