Grammatical mistakes

[Melissa Smith]

You indeed repeat my pet peeves in English.  Having been brought up on 
Tom Lehrer's satirical songs, I always think of the "Old Dope Peddler, 
doing WELL by doing GOOD. ("with his powdered happiness"). When I 
explained this distinction to a Russian exchange student, she began to 
listen attentively to local Ohioans, however, not a one answered 
anything but "good" in response to "How are you doing?"

Russian has a whole category of "просторечие"" to cover errors in 
grammar. And of course, jokes about Georgians and Chukchi thrive on the 
absence of gender. "Пачему "ананас" -- одно слово, а "Мы её - два 
слова?" 

Since my teachers were either in Leningrad-St. Petersburg or Moscow, I 
learned a bunch of rules that I hear infringed upon right and left 
among Russian immigrants, which has led me to conclude that some things 
construed as errors may be "provincialisms." The one I really can't get 
over , however is "он ЗВОНит" rather than "звоНИТ" Another friend fro 
Kharkov will sometimes say "Едь," rather than "Поезжай." And I myself 
have trouble with the "ТВОРог/творРОГ" distinction, which was hammered 
into my head at one point.

I'm not totally comfortable with being a "descriptive" rather than a 
"prescriptive" linguist, but I imagine the former have fewer headaches! 

Melissa Smith

On 10/17/11 5:40 PM, William Derbyshire wrote:s"" Consequently
> 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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------------------------------------

Melissa T. Smith, Professor
Department of Foreign Languages and 
Literatures  
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, OH 44555
Tel: (330)941-3462

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