Grammatical mistakes

[George Kalbouss]

	This question stems from frustrating experiences I've had with people
in the Columbus area whose grammar is positively atrocious.  I'm not speaking
of word mispronunciation or spelling mistakes.  I'm speaking of people who seem
totally incapable of forming a past tense (i.e. "we wuz here," "I seen it yesterday,"
"he has came here,"), as well as other variances from the norm.  There should
be no excuse for this, for the most part the speakers are from the working class, 
but are virtually all high school graduates.

	The question I have is this:  "do Russians make grammatical errors?"  When
I think of all the interactions I have had with Russians, both in Russia and emigres
in the US,  I cannot recall ever encountering one who made a grammatical error.
(I'm excluding so-called "heritage speakers,"  persons of other ethnic backgrounds
for whom Russian is a second language, or people who mispronounce words).	When
I think about the various dialogues I've read in Russian literature and drama,  I can recall many
instances of "dialect" Russian which was usually expressed with alternate pronunciations,
but not really errors in grammar.

	A few years back, I was taking a seminar in the Finnish language in Finland.
After going through practicums in incredible rules of grammar,  declensions, exceptions, etc.,
one of the participants in the group asked the instructors the same question, i.e.,
"do Finns make grammatical errors?"  The instructors seemed visibly lost in answering
the question,  their first inclination was to say, "no they don't" -- yet an answer like
that seemed positively silly.

	If I am right (or leaning in that direction),  what is it about English that seems to invite
people into making these mistakes when Russian and Finnish (and other languages)
where there are many more rules and variances, for people to speak correctly?  Perhaps
at least we can agree that errors in grammar seem to abound more with native English speakers
than they do with native Russian speakers.

	I'd appreciate any musings on this subject!

George Kalbouss
Assoc Prof (Emeritus)
The Ohio State University

	

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