Grammar nannies take us to the woodshed

The temptation to fulminate about the grammar and syntax errors that appear in The Pilot is one I have conscientiously resisted since my year as public editor began in January.

Fear that my laments would be perceived as preachy tempered that urge. So did a sense of dread that I might sound too much like my mother, who, born a subject of the British crown, bemoaned my every childhood grammar transgression, saying, "You are murdering the king's English."

Today, with a file of reader complaints and a conviction that newspapers must venerate the language, I succumb. English is "a merry confusion of quirks and irregularities," according to grammarian Bill Bryson. The king's English that my mother defended defies the rules that bring order, say, to German or French.

In France, for example, the official authority on standard usage is the Academie francais, a learned body that has a counterpart in more than 70 world languages. In the absence of any similar oversight in America, the widespread use of linguistic corruptions evolve as acceptable English. Purists, however, abhor these democratic progressions in the language. Some of our readers are among them.

While deadline demands and human frailty make a few blunders inevitable, perhaps even excusable, others elicit gasps. Whoever wrote that the submarine Oklahoma City headed "west" when it left Naval Station Norfolk bound for Lebanon surely should have known better.

A bit of charity is in order for "the hoi polloi" lapse. The writer, to her credit, knew the term referred to the proletariat rather than the elite. She was unaware, however, that hoi means "the" in Greek, hence, in translation, to precede the term with a definite article is to say "the the proletariat."

Minette Cooper of Norfolk gasped not long ago at a caption on a Sports section front that accompanied a photo of Devorah and David Golt, parents of 10 Oscar Smith High School students, one or more of whom have played a school sport every year since 1995. The caption, a quotation, read, " 'I think it'd be easier to count up the games we haven't been to,' Devorah Golt said of she and husband David."

Cooper circled "she" on the page and wrote "This is bad!" She's right. We should have written, "Devorah Golt said of herself and her husband."

Marci Brunett of Chesapeake could "hardly believe the egregious error" in a full-page ad for household appliances. A starburst on the front of nine washer-dryer sets was emblazoned, "To Low to Advertise." On nine occasions, "to" was substituted for "too," which led Brunett to admonish, "The advertising department really needs to step up its proofreading."

Mary G. Martin of Virginia Beach chided Pilotonline.com for a misplaced apostrophe in the possessive form of Buddhist's. Placing the apostrophe after, rather than before, the 's' is a familiar error. "So few people can actually manage the possessive form correctly anymore.... sigh," Martin's e-mail concluded.

The use of plural pronouns to designate singular nouns and the muddling of plural subjects with singular verbs is epidemic. A phrase from a Virginian-Pilot article is emblematic. "... but no one left, because none of the teens was willing to wait one second longer to get their driver's licenses." To accompany "no one" and "none" (which can denote either singular or plural) with "was" is correct if "none" designates the singular, "not one." However, the subsequent use of the plural pronoun, "their" derails the sentence. The plural, "licenses," compounds the error.

"Hopefully" is equally likely to wreck a sentence, at least for purists who consider it a corruption of the language. It has appeared in The Pilot more than 500 times this year, usually in direct quotes, in the form that grammar cognoscenti consider a bastardization of proper English.

"Hopefully," an adverb, means "with hope" and refers to a frame of mind. To say, "She set off on the journey hopefully," is the correct construction. However, in its contemporary usage, "Hopefully my car will pass inspection," suggests that the car is hopeful.

William Strunk and E.B. White wrote the half-century-old "Elements of Style," the "little book" of grammar and usage that made them demigods. They unequivocally denounce this formulation of "hopefully." Transforming this "once useful adverb" into a designation for "I hope" or "it is to be hoped," they write, offends those "who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense." Although a few grammar authorities have sanctioned the "hopeful car, " I stand on the ramparts with Strunk and White. It's nonsense!

Maybe I sound like my mother.

Joyce Hoffmann, the public editor, is an associate professor in the English Department at Old Dominion University. Reach her at (757) 446-2475 or public.editor@pilotonline.com.