Language errors made by example

How distressing to read once again about decreasing verbal scores on the SAT college entrance exam. Math scores continue to climb, but the decline in language-related scores for the high school Class of 2002 has prompted the College Board to launch a commission to improve the writing of the nation’s young people.

Distressing … but not surprising.

Young people today aren’t exposed to the fundamentals of plain English style. They don’t know how to speak or how to write because their parents don’t, and because their teachers place more emphasis on math and science than language.

A decade ago, 33 percent of college-bound seniors took precalculus; this year, 45 percent did. In contrast, participation in English composition courses declined to 67 percent in 2002, compared with 81 percent in 1992.

Officials of the College Board, which owns the SAT, said those trends “demonstrate the need for a renewed focus on reading, writing and grammar.”

And that applies to all of us, not merely our young scholars equipped in their new school year with laptop computers but no word skills with which to use them.

We’re language lazy. We’re so used to being bombarded with misuse of English that we don’t recognize errors and, thus, repeat them for young ears and eyes.

Lawyer and lexicographer Bryan A. Garner, who compiled “A Dictionary of Modern American Usage,” blames much of the decay of our language on mass communications itself.

“A great deal of mediocre writing appears in print nowadays, and both written and oral assaults on the language do seem to come at high velocities. The speed comes from mass communications,” says Garner. “Turn on the TV and listen to commentators on football, tennis, or golf, and you’ll be treated to the heights of inarticulacy. Then imagine all the millions of viewers whose linguistic perceptions are affected by this blather.”

Blather, indeed. Everywhere we look, everything we hear. No wonder SAT verbal scores are dropping; most people don’t know what the word “verbal” means. As one of my favorite writers, James J. Kilpatrick, says when explaining the difference in “oral” and “verbal”: “When it comes to sex, the two

words assuredly are not confused, and they ought not to be confused in writing either. The trouble is that while ‘oral’ and ‘verbal’ both apply to that which is spoken, only ‘verbal’ applies to that which is written.”

By remembering Kilpatrick, we might avoid the confusion that results from “the verbal agreement” that more understandably would be identified as “a written agreement.”

In the past week alone, we’ve seen and heard dozens of assaults on our precious language. A letter writer mentioned his grandmother was “grand marshall” of the parade, but the editor snoozed over the misspelling. Another editor allowed a columnist to use “its” (possessive) when he meant “it’s” (contraction).

A large sign near a video shop advertises it will “make copys” of any movie. The weather forecaster on television called for thunderstorms “further” up the coast, a misspeak E.B. White and William Strunk would have lamented.

We’ve become so accustomed to seeing Rite-Aid stores tout their “drive-thru” pharmacy we hardly notice they have no pharmacist in the window, let alone their misspelling.

Even at the popular Northeast U.S. Sheep Dog Trials, we were reminded of the common misuse of grammar. Most of the trainers – one exception noted – used their whistles and their commands: “lay down” to their border collies.

Why does it offend us so? Perhaps math scores are more important. In the real world, does it matter if our beautiful language dies a slow death?

Maybe we should just let sleeping dogs lay.