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Apr. 4, 2005 I recently posted at this website an article lodging my complaints about all the idle complexities of English orthography. But these illogicalities are just the tip of the iceberg. If you look further you see that English grammar is an equally woeful mess. For example, consider verbs. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone who knows the difference between 'to lie' and 'to lay'. In books, magazines and newspapers, they are usually used correctly, but on the street, almost never. One hears, "I was laying around," or, "We laid around," all the time. I can't say that I've ever heard anyone use the word "lain" at all, almost as if no one even knows that it exists. It's easy to dismiss people who don't know how to handle these words as ignorant, but the real fault lies in the English language itself. Many English verbs have three so-called principal parts, as in: break-broke-broken; see-saw-seen; drink-drank-drunk, sing-sang-sung, lie-lay-lain. For many verbs, there are only two principal parts: work-worked; evaporate-evaporated; lay-laid; arrive-arrived; fight-fought. Some have only one: set; put; cut; let; shut. The gerund/participle in -ing and the third-person singular in -s are not counted as principal parts: breaking-breaks; etc. Many people use the past tense for the past participle: I have ate; he might have went; he shouldn't have wrote; it got broke. Sometimes it's vice versa: I seen; the ship sunk; the shirt shrunk. And all sorts of others oddities appear: it was tooken; he snuck in; he done went; if he had have went; I says to him come on and he up and come; I might could lay around; he used to could went; he brang; they was conversating; he ain't did nothing; he been having; he do be having; if he asses me again. The simplest solution would be merely to eliminate all the bizarre institutionalized verb forms that seem to linger century after century, setting up a simplified and consistent paradigm for all verbs, without exception: I break, I dont break, he break, he dont break, I did break, he did break, it will get break, it did get break, I be break, they be break, etc. Actually, a far simpler scheme than even this could be devised, but it would mean overhauling the system completely and adding some new, more methodical auxiliary verbs. English pronouns present a similarly distressing situation. For example, there is no need for the following sets of synonyms: I-me-myself; he-him-himself; she-her-herself, we-us-ourselves; they-them-themselves. A single pronoun would work in each case: I see he; he see I; she see they; they see she; she see self. It would be helpful to have 'you' (singular) and 'you' (plural) though. I hear expressions like 'you guys' and 'yall', and even 'your guyses' and 'yalls' as possessives. One hears such expressions as these: him and me went; him and I went; it was told to he and I; her and I saw your guyses' ma; they don't behave theirself. When I was young, it was taught that the consequent of 'everyone', 'someone' and 'anyone' is 'he': If anyone is in doubt, he should consult his textbook. Then it came into vogue to say 'he or she': If anyone is in doubt, he or she should consult his or her textbook. Today, even journalists use 'they' as the consequent: If anyone is in doubt, they should consult their textbook. Another trend I've noticed is to use an occasional 'she', where, in the old days, 'he' would have been accepted usage: If anyone is in doubt, she should consult her textbook. The simple solution would be to introduce a third pronoun, for example, 'se', which would mean 'he or she': If anyone is in doubt, se should consult se's textbook. Such a pronoun is called an epicene pronoun, referring to either gender, just as 'they' does. Such pronouns exist in Chinese, Turkish and Persian, at least. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to operate in correct English, as in this kind of absurdity: If anyone comes to the door, tell him or her to let himself or herself in and make himself or herself comfortable, but if they are a woman, tell them to let themselves into the guest room if they want. And a number of anomalies arise too: hisself, theirselves, theirself, ourself. All of this is totally needless. It would really be simplicity itself, while discarding superfluous pronouns, merely to adopt some additional pronouns, arbitrarily coined to fill the need. In addition to epicene pronouns, innumerate pronouns should be introduced as well. An innumerate pronoun, say 'hin', would be one referring to either one person or several persons: If a person or persons are a party in a lawsuit, hin (=he, she or they) may be called either the plaintiff or the plaintiffs or the defendant or the defendants. It would be so easy! Numeral words are a mess too. Why do we need words like these: ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, etc., twenty, thirty, forty, etc.? Nothing could be easier than just to read off the digits: one-o, one-one, one-two, one-three, one-four, two-o, three-o, four-o. Instead of "twelve thousand three hundred eighty one dollars", we could say, "one-two-three-eight-one dollar". Ordinals could be simplified too. Why should it be mandatory to cling to such nonsensical forms as these: first, second, third, fifth, etc. One could say instead: number-one, number-two, number-three, number-five. If these are too long, we could just abbreviate "number" to "num": num-one, num-two, num-three, num-five. It works in Chinese: ti-yi, ti-er, ti-san, ti-wu, etc., and it could work in English. For numerals like "one million" and "three billion", we could say "one-zee-six" or "three-zee-nine", introducing a special little word to tell us how many zeroes we should understand. Of course, there are many, many other problems with the English language, which I simply won't go into, in this little article of mine. Actually, English is not as widely spoken as most Americans imagine, though it can be heard in the most diverse places, and probably bids fair to become an international language. It would certainly facilitate the takeover though, if certain orthographical and grammatical simplifications were introduced. It would be an easy matter just to slip them into newspapers and books a few at a time. Viewed from the standpoint of pure logic, the English language is beyond redemption. But as a practical, convenient, everyday language, it might serve the purpose--preferably with a few reforms. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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