Grammatical mistakes

[Charles Mills]

Why stop with mistakes in non-standard English?  Why not go the whole nine
yards and draw attention to mistakes in the standard language itself?  For
example, think of all the bumpkins who say "Where are you going?", when
everyone knows it should be "Whither goest thou?"  These self same bumpkins
don't even distinguish between whither and where!  Fortunately there are
those who are attempting to redress the oversight with "Where 're you at?"
vs. "Where 're you going to?"

I'll never forget the day (I was in the Czech Republic) that my
teacher informed us that Pushkin used "nespisovne formy"!  (Post-positive
determiners, or some such.)  Nespisovne?!  I thought Pushkin was literary by
definition!

Charles Mills
Pacific Grove

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