They don't make English teachers like they used to.
English teachers used to be grey-haired scolds, usually female, who wore scratchy sweaters year-round, painted their fingernails and lips scarlet, and fought an epic war against linguistic barbarity with that most terrible of weapons: the red ballpoint pen.
A paper could not be corrected properly, after all, in any color other than that of blood. And that's what they called it: "correcting." Not "grading" or "evaluating." Correcting, the presupposition being that anything submitted by lowly students could only reek with error.
English teachers made you write papers on banal subjects. Then they flailed your work with those dreadful pens, correcting everything from penmanship to grammar and your character in the process. They belittled your words in front of classmates in a ritual you survived by pretending not to care.
But you did care. And you learned English.
Breed extinct
The breed has gone extinct. English teachers now, if this parent's experience with meet-the-teacher nights is any guide, are young and friendly, even cheerful. Maybe it's because they no longer wear wool in summer.
Modern English teachers don't have scarlet fingernails and lips. They don't brandish red pens like swords. And they don't apply the standards of their professional forebears.
Imagine an editor's horror a few years back when his then-grade-school daughter's report card contained this note–in roller-ball blue—from her English teacher: "A real dilligent student!"
A small error, that extra "l." A slip of the pen, perhaps.
But it was an English teacher who committed the flub. Have our guardians of the language gone soft?
Apparently so. Look around the world of words. An entire generation of writers doesn't know "its" from "it's." The former is possessive, the latter a contraction of "it is."
So a dog doesn't chase it's tail; the pooch chases its tail. It's (not "its") what dogs do.
Here's another one: "lead" as the past-tense form of "lead." Find a red pen; slay that extra "a."
Today you lead the company in sales; yesterday you led—not "lead"—it. The word "lead" pronounced as "led" is the name of a heavy metal, not a verb, except to barbarians.
And "alot" is not a word meaning "many." It is, in fact, not a word. It's an incorrect fusion of the phrase "a lot." A lot—not alot—of English teachers have let this barbarism slink into common usage. Shame on them.
How about the difference between "awhile" and "a while"? There is one, you know.
"While," in the phrase "a while," is a noun referring to a small quantum of time. The single word "awhile" is an adverb meaning "for a while."
Think about that for a while. Or think about it awhile. But don't think about it for awhile or the ghosts of whole generations of English teachers—now, alas, gone—will splatter your words with splotchy red ink.
These are small offenses. We know what barbarians mean when they use "it's" for "its," "awhile" for "a while," "alot" for "a lot" or, better still, simply "many" or "much."
The lapses described here testify less to failed communication than to nonchalance by guardians of the language who decided at some point no longer to act like woolly-throated trolls. If only the minor infractions had sneaked past their relaxed defenses, there would be no cause for alarm. But no: The biggest transgression has slipped through as well.
Biggest transgression
You've seen it. You see it everywhere.
It's the exclamation point used to imply emphasis—or, worse, cheery emphasis.
"You've been selected to serve on a select task force to make recommendations about company downsizing!"
Doesn't that exclamation point make you feel great?
Inevitably—and ridiculously—the exclamation point used for emphasis clones itself, as though two of the things generate twice the emphasis of one.
"Here's your password! Keep it in a safe place!!"
"To boost morale, the company has scheduled a picnic! Your attendance is mandatory!! You will have fun!!!"
See? Runaway exclamation points.
Here's the rule: Exclamation points follow exclamations and shouldn't appear anywhere else.
So what's an exclamation?
Ask an English teacher. Preferably one in a scratchy sweater.
