Grammatical mistakes

[William Derbyshire]

In a message dated 10/17/2011 2:09:54 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,  
sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET writes:

The  mistakes that grate on me the most here in Alaska are "I'm going to  
lay
down" 
I don't think that the average  college-educated speaker of English could 
produce and
use correctly the various forms of  "to lie"  and "to lay", and this 
pertains to Americans 
and British equally - not just youse / ya'll /  younse Alaskans!
 
 "You did good". 
This might be  grammatically correct if the speaker means to say what the  
sentence says.
How about "I don't feel good" vs. "I don't feel well" (is the latter an  
adjective or an 
adverb, if the latter, then you better learn how to do it well!)?
 
Also English speakers have horrible problems with apostrophes. So  many 
people find it hard 
to grasp that "it's" means "it is", while "its" is possessive. But  seeing 
an apostrophe in a plural 
is the most depressing.
Now you've really  hit upon my pet peeve. Take a drive on a Saturday and 
count the number 
of signs which  state:   "free kitten's"
At our local  farmers market It is quite normal to see signs in one and the 
same  booth. such as:
            "cucumbers  $ xxx"
            "turnip's        $ xxx"
            "We  also have tomato's and potatoes too."
Sheeesh!!
I was amazed when I noticed the same mistakes  being made by British 
speakers of English. 
But, far worse, I have found similar examples of the misspelling of  
plurals in my local newspaper. 
Finally, I have a friend whose child's teacher  "corrected" the proper 
spelling of the plural noun
"books"  to "book's" in the child's composition. The teacher was furious 
when the parent  pointed
out the  mistake and subsequently became revengeful towards the child.
 
And yes,  Virginia, I've heard many a Russian speak about "Mojo 
den'rozhdenie". and  use,
inter alia, incorrect genitive plural endings ("sosedov"), not to mention  
incorrect stress on 
numerous verb forms ("prinjAl"). When I was still actively teaching I used  
to keep notes 
on mistakes which I heard educated Russians make. I regret that I did not  
keep that list.
It would have made a good article.
            
*************************************************
William W. Derbyshire
Professor Emeritus - Rutgers  University
freelance translator - Slavic  languages

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