Public-service journalism: Educational, if not humorous

When you’re in public-service journalism, sometimes you have no choice but to do what the public asks. Seems more like it in today’s world, anyway. So here goes.

With Facebook, email, chat, ad infinitum, it’s almost like reading hieroglyphics sometimes. So honestly, I don’t know whether to try to educate or try to be funny. I’ll try, though, to do both and not get political.

Since I was a high school English and journalism teacher, I will make the lesson for today on English usage, grammar and spelling. That should be educational enough, I think. Perhaps not humorous, but educational. Fair enough? Even in public-service journalism, you have to draw a line somewhere.

But where do I start? Well, I got a text recently that ended by saying, “Do NOT grade my text to You as I do not Paragraph My texts and I will NOT improve my, English, Grammer, And Spelling is the fault of a Big finger and speed of typing.” Well, I reckon. I got the message. The language of the time.

Now, I’ve seen texts that say “goodnite.” So how about spelling? OK. Night is the period of time between sunset and sunrise when it is usually dark. “Nite” is an incorrect spelling for that time. Even if the spelling were correct (“were” is used here because the subjunctive case is called for since the statement is contrary to fact: The spelling is incorrect), “tonites,” as used in “tonites paper,” would need an apostrophe (“tonite’s”) to indicate possession.

I told you that educational columns weren’t humorous. But while I’m at it, there are a few expressions or usage irregularities common in the language that arise from just plain ignorance (exhibiting a lack of knowledge or education) on the part of the speaker. Let me educate you.

Take “irregardless,” for example. Now there’s one that grates on the English teacher’s ears. Of course, it should be “regardless.” “Irregardless” is a nonstandard  combination of “regardless” and “irrespective.” I do find a usage note in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language that says, “Irregardless, a double negative, is only acceptable when the intent is clearly humorous.”

Perhaps I’ve failed to recognize humorous intent when I’ve heard the word spoken so often. If so, please accept my apologies. But I’ll spare you the agony of educating you not to use double negatives. You all know you’re not supposed to say, “I don’t have none,” “I ain’t got none,” etc. You may even know that it’s acceptable to use “ain’t” to provide humor or shock to reproduce certain speech patterns.

Assuming you know you should say, “I saw” rather than “I seen” and “I have seen” rather than “I have saw,” let’s go on to some less-known abnormalities in local speech that I grew up using.

I learned about one of them the hard way years ago when I told a friend to wait “on” me. He shoved me down to “sit” (not “set”) on me. I learned to say wait “for” (not “fer”) me.

I looked at him and said, “That puts me in the mind of the way a Marine Corps drill instructor treats recruits.”

He looked at me and frowned.

“That’s the only way some people learn,” he said. “Where are you from? What’s this ‘puts me in the mind of’ stuff?”

I told him I didn’t know, but that I was from Illinois. So was he. He told me he was glad that I said “Illinois” instead of “Illinoise” and that I should say “reminds me of” if I want to sound educated. I didn’t know about that, but I was learning then like I’m trying to teach now.

“OK,” I said, “but I used to say when I was a little boy, I —”    

“Damn,” he said. “You just won’t quit, will you? Why say ‘I used to’ when you can say ‘when I was’ and save a couple of words?”

I saw his point. And thinking about it, I remembered the Watergate hearings when John Dean testified. As he seemed to grope for words he thought would be in his best interest, he would say, “At this (or that) point in time,” over and over again when he really meant “now” or “then.”

Anyway, I looked at my learned friend, “Needless to say —”

“Don’t say it, then.”

“Well, like I said —”

“‘As I said,’ son. You use ‘like’ with phrases, ‘as’ with clauses.”

“Hey, can you wait until I get orientated —”

“Oriented,” he said. “That means to adjust a situation. Some affected businessman inverted ‘orientated’ because it sounded funny. Stick to regular, simple words.”

“Say, were you named after Webster that wrote the dictionary?” I asked.

He laughed and shook his head. “Of course. Weren’t you?”

I stared at him.

“But I wasn’t named ‘for’ him,” he said.

“You know what I mean,” I said.

“Not unless you say it, I don’t. I’m not clairvoyant; I don’t read minds. Always say what you mean; mean what you say.”

I could go on, but I’ve said enough in the way of educational, public-service journalism for one column. I was tempted to put an exclamation mark in the last sentence to indicate strong feeling. But I know the exclamation mark should be used sparingly — the words should show the strong feeling.

And I’ll try to write something humorous next time, something about … but no, I’ll just end with the graffiti I saw on a wall one time. It read: “Can’t your wright something witty on the wall?”

“Know” was scrawled underneath.