Grammar & Pronunciation Errors

5. Do I say I or me? I all the time? Me all the time?. Many of us do in fact learn that there are times to use I and times to use me; few of us actually learn to understand the why and when. Whenever faced with a question as to which is right, think to yourself, "What if I'm only talking about myself?" So, if, when going to say someone gave something to you and a friend, you find yourself stumbling, ask what if someone was giving something to only you. For example: "She gave it to Adam and...", you begin to stumble. Stop yourself. What if she gave it to just you? "She gave it to me." Now, you can confidently go on to say, "She gave it to Adam and me." Another example: someone asks who's going to the movies. You start to say, "Adam and...", and stumble. What if it's just you? "I am going to the movies," so, "Adam and I are going to the movies."

4. Can I help who's next? It grates against my ears to hear this all-too common bastardization of our language at a coffeeshop or elsewhere. It almost sounds as though the waitron just said, "Can I help? Who's next?"--but not quite, and my brain is tied up in confusion every time. Often, with language, and a host of other areas, the simplest solutions are best, clearest, most elegant. "Who's next?" is probably the clearest and simplest thing to say. We already know that a given waitron probably can in fact help a given patron. All that really needs to be known is who's next on line. If compelled to add useless stuff at the beginning, one should use the correct phrase "May I help whoever is next?" 'whoever' being the subject of the clause 'whoever is next,' and the clause 'whoever is next' being the object of the transitive verb 'help' (the whole clause is the object; the intransitive verb 'is' within the clause still needs the subject, 'whoever').

3. Personally, I.... One word: redundancy. Similar but different is "Hopefully, I will..." Do you mean to say you'll be doing a given thing "full of hope", or do you really mean to say that if you're _lucky_, you will be doing a given thing? If it's the latter, try, "With any luck, I'll be...." Both are cases where divinity is found in the details. You will separate yourself from the pack when you begin to mind details like these.

2. Amongst. Two words: antiquated, obsolete. You hear "amongst" more commonly than "among." Why folks insist on a pronunciation that stems from Middle English is almost beyond me; in the end, I realize that saying "amongst" is an effort by English speakers to sound sophisticated somehow. They don't. The word sounds exactly as it is, antiquated and obsolete. We're now in the 21st century, folks; we say "among", just like we say "amid" not "amidst" and "between" not "betwixt."

1. Lingerie, pronounced "lohn-zhe-ray". It _should_ be "LAN-je-ree." I am not one to pronounce foreign words the way they'd be pronounced in a given foreign language (and neither should you be! If you want to pronounce them that way, go ahead and speak the foreign language in question. When speaking English, speak English!). This is a case where the common pronunciation has nothing to do with either English or French. If you didn't know the word was French and came across it in a sentence, the pronunciation you'd come up with would be much closer to the French than what most folks say now, with the first syllable like the first part of "long" and the last syllable like "ray." No! Don't. It hurts. If you said, "linger-ee," as you might not knowing it's a French word, you'd still be doing many times better than most folks today.