Sometimes, when I sing along to the radio or the iPod or other music-playing gadget, I will come across a song featuring incorrect grammar.
And I want to punch the singer.
I am all for poetic license and I understand about dialects and functional conversation grammar and whathaveyou. That’s fine. It adds flavor. It adds voice. It’s like writing in a dialect, an excellent example being Their Eyes Were Watching God by Nora Zealle Hurston (which I actually hated and it annoyed the everliving out of me when I was reading it, but I recognize its literary merit and that had it been written in Standard English it would not be the same).
It’s instances that are very obviously mistakes that make me want to go kickboxing. Places where the writer, singer, producer and whoever else was involved clearly did not catch the error. Or worse, did not realize the error was an error!
Cut out my heart, why don’t you?
An example, “When you find the place that your heart belongs, you’ll never leave.”
NO!
A place is not a thing. It is a place. Therefore it is not a that. It has its very own pronoun. Where. USE IT SPEAKERS OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE!!!!!
So whenever that song pops up on my iPod I sing, “When you find the place WHERE your heart belongs, you’ll never leave.”
And yes I do emphasize the “where,” ensuring that I don’t even hear the mistake.
June 21st, 2011 at 11:51 am
I am no grammar expert but this simile has always annoyed me: “Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are LIKE shooting stars.”
If you want to pretend something is something else, why would you use a simile when a metaphor works much better.
June 24th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
OMG JANET I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
June 21st, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Guilty. ::hand in air:: Trent Reznor thoroughly confused me with “down the path we have chose”. O_o
June 24th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
That’s just not even close to being right! Who doens’t catch that?
June 21st, 2011 at 3:45 pm
I have to admit, I am not a grammar nazi. I am not an expert, and I know I make plenty of mistakes. A LOT of mistakes, actually, so I can’t correct other people without feeling silly.
June 24th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Oh don’t get me wrong. I know I make mistakes. It’s the mistake that seems so blatantly obvious that no native speaker should make that turns my hair on end.
June 21st, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Scary…haha.
Grammar isn’t my strongest point, but i guess i can always claim that its not my mother tongue. Anyway, i get your point. I’ve encountered a lot of these errors and not only in song lyrics but in actual conversations with native speakers. But i’ll keep in mind that little lesson on the usage of “where” and “that.”
June 24th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Tee hee! Glad I could teach someone something! Learn something new everyday
June 23rd, 2011 at 7:26 am
I have a problem with the use of ‘that’ to refer to people. Isn’t the correct pronoun ‘who’. The grammar rules might have been changed now, but I still find it strange. Especially in commercials.
June 24th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
DON’T GIVE IN MAIMOONA! The rule didn’t change, people just ignore it. Stick to your guns!
June 23rd, 2011 at 10:04 am
It must be genetic; Aunt Sue, Chrissy and I are also BUGGED by errant grammar!
June 24th, 2011 at 3:07 pm
It just makes you sound slightly less intelligent than you are. I make allowances for the obscure rules or occasional speech misstep – everyone has those – but really. Correct yourself!
June 23rd, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I am very prone to errors when typing. So I try to be forgiving. But there are some mistakes that annoy me a lot:
1. “The person THAT does blah..” WHO WHO WHO
2. “That worked our perfect.” PerfectLY
June 24th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Thank you! I know everyone including me makes mistakes, but sometimes it just gets to me. “That worked out perfect” doesn’t even SOUND right.
June 24th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
Grammar doesn’t bother me TOO much in songs – mostly because I hear a lot of R&B and it’s rarely remotely grammatically correct – but I can’t stand poor grammar/English usage in conversation or writing. And text-speak hurts my eyes.
June 24th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
So true! My sister and even people older than me use text speak and it drives me nuts. I used to write that way when I was younger but it only lasted about three years and now I’ve chucked those manuscripts down the drain because I get so embarrassed for my younger self.
July 1st, 2011 at 7:22 pm
I love that you correct and stress grammar differences – I do the same!
: D Annnd that is actually why I just generally listen to art music. XD
July 13th, 2011 at 11:38 am
[...] Grammar Police (missrosemary.net) [...]
July 16th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
I love grammar. I love this post. I am on the grammar task police force too.