mjh’s blog

He Had Went and Really Gotten to Myself

ABQjournal: Astorga Alone During Stop, Police Say By T.J. Wilham, Journal Staff Writer

Marcantel said Astorga, 29, knew that had McGrane, 38, taken his driver’s license and went back to his squad car, the deputy would have known about the warrant within minutes.

ABQjournal: Mayor Had a Reason to Speed By T.J. Wilham, Of the Journal

Last Friday, Schultz invited myself on a ride-along.

OK, I am officially an old-fart — something you probably already knew about me. I have to say these two abuses of language get to me, especially seeing both by the same writer on the same day in two separate articles.

Understand, I shattered my glass house years ago. I’m a recovering perfectionist whose recovery began with recognizing I can’t be perfect nor can I expect that of anyone else.

Even before that, I was shaken from incipient language-fascism by my great language mentor (after my Mother, of course), my brother, Dan. When, as a young-fart, I attacked some change in language that offended even my young ears, he set me straight on the inevitability of change and the irony of that progression from “misuse” to mainstream and the reversal of fortunes that comes when “saying it correctly” suddenly sounds archaic. Shakespeare would be appalled by my very best English and I sometimes don’t get his.

In fact, the conundrum of celebrating the richness of language is that one cannot define what is wealth. Which is not meant to give in and say “it’s all good” (snap). At any one moment, it’s not all good — context rules.

Ah, but what of journalists? Their context has its own rules and stylebooks. Is something that would be terrible in the context of oratory or literature more acceptable on newsprint? More than likely.

All that aside, these two examples really grate on me. I hope T.J. Wilham can rise above the colloquial. I wish he had an editor who would help him do so. mjh

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1. I love that you pointed this out. “Had went” is my all-time biggest grammar complaint. Probably because a loved one had a reaaaalllly bad habit of saying it. “Had went”: I still shudder to hear it!

   Comment by Maggie — Wed 04/26/06 #

2. Maggie- From one M to another, thanks for visiting. // For those who don’t know, Maggie is one of the M’s at http://m-pyre.blogspot.com/ , a local progressive blog I recommend you visit. peace, mjh

   Comment by mjh — Thu 04/27/06 #

3. Me and some others would like to know where the word, “gone,” has went! Have you got it?

   Comment by Dale Barnes — Tue 01/29/08 #

4. “me and some others” - WOW

   I think it’s some others and I…..

   Comment by Julie — Sat 04/26/08 (3 weeks ago) #

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