Top 10 Irritating Errors in American English (I)
Below are the top 10 solecisms in American English that irritate the hell out of the self-appointed grammar police outside America. 1. Americans are awful with prepositions. They, for instance, can’t differentiate “wait on” from “wait for.” It is typical to hear many Americans—educated and uneducated alike— say, “I am waiting on you” when […]
Below are the top 10 solecisms in American English that irritate the hell out of the self-appointed grammar police outside America.
1. Americans are awful with prepositions. They, for instance, can’t differentiate “wait on” from “wait for.” It is typical to hear many Americans—educated and uneducated alike— say, “I am waiting on you” when they actually mean “I am waiting for you.” To wait on somebody is to work for, or be a servant to, that person. At first, I thought Americans in their usual linguistic “rebellion” had chosen to subvert British English prepositions (in the fashion of “different than,” instead of “different from,” since “than” only co-occurs with comparative forms like “better,” “wiser,” “less,” “more,” etc and words like “rather,” and “other”; “in behalf of,” instead of “on behalf of,” etc.). But I found out that it is actually a usage error even by the indulgent standards of American English.
One day, in 2005, an American journalism professor friend of mine in Louisiana told me he was “waiting on” the chair of our department. (I was on very friendly terms with him and we often joked about grammar, especially about the occasional humorous differences between American and British English). So I said to him: “I didn’t know you are now a servant to the chair of our department.” He knew I was up to some mischief, but he couldn’t immediately figure out what it was. When I explained to him why I called him a “servant,” I thought he would say I was wrong by the standards of American English. But he didn’t. He instead said, “Good catch, Farooq. You got me there!”
Similarly, Americans don’t visit people; they “visit with” them. And they don’t say they are being interviewed for a job; they say they are “interviewing with” a prospective employer for a job. But by the standards of American English, these are not errors.
2. Their use of the verb “to be” is no less awful. When Americans use the adverb “there,” it is almost always followed either by “is” or “was” even if the subject in the sentence is a plural noun. Examples: “there is so many people out there,” “there is a lot of problems with that political party,” “there is 10 people in the class,” “there was a lot of people at the party.” This (mis)usage appears to be creeping over to informal British English lately.
And such grammatically awkward expressions as “I could have went [‘gone’] there,” “I had saw [‘seen’] him,” “I should have gave [‘given’] him,” etc. are very common even among educated Americans. The irregular past participle is perilously endangered here. But it also appears that Americans are spreading this error across the Atlantic. I spotted it on a British Internet forum a few weeks ago. Funnily, the person who made the mistake was correcting someone else’s grammar! Of course, she became the butt of jokes.
3. Many Americans can’t differentiate the adverb “then” from the preposition/conjunction “than.” I used to think this error was the consequence of a typographical error, but then I realized that letters “a” and “e” are not contiguous on the keyboard. So the error probably derives from the fact that Americans pronounce these words alike. A similar error, which has now been normalized, is the use of the phrase “most everybody” for “almost everybody.”
4. I also find that a good many Americans can’t distinguish the possessive pronoun “your” from “you’re” (the short form of “you are”). It’s usual to read phrases like “your awesome” instead of “you’re awesome.” And they tend to use “you” where “your” is the appropriate pronoun to use. For instance, they write, “I appreciate you taking the time to read this article” instead of “I appreciate your taking the time to read this article.” What you’re appreciating is not the person (which would have justified the use of the pronoun “you”) but the action of the person (which is properly signified with the possessive pronoun “your”). No one says, for instance, “I appreciate you action”; we say “I appreciate your action.”
I had a big fight with a student in Louisiana who thought I was wrong to take off points from her paper for this type of misusage. She appealed against the grade and, fortunately for me, the professor who reviewed it knew enough grammar to overrule her. But I see this error so often that I have now become desensitized to it.
Many Americans also can’t differentiate “they’re” (short form of “they are”), “their” (the possessive form of “they”), and “there” (an adverb of place).
And they struggle with knowing— and respecting— the difference between “its” (a possessive pronoun) and “it’s” (the short form of “it is”), and between “loose” (meaning “not tight”) and “lose” (meaning “fail to win”). To be fair, this solecism isn’t exclusive to Americans; it’s almost universal.
5. Americans have a habit of writing the way they speak. For instance, “should have” often becomes “should of.” Many also can’t differentiate between “ensure” (to make certain in the future) and “insure” (to protect by insurance) because they pronounce these words alike. Just like “all of a sudden” has suddenly become “all the sudden.”
For now, these errors are frowned upon by careful writers and grammarians in America. But if the fate of similar errors is any guide, they may soon be mainstreamed. For instance, “first off,” which is a corruption of “first of all” is now standard. “Out the window,” which was a colloquial and humorous short form for “out of the window” is now respectable.
6. “Both the two of them.” I have heard even professors use this expression here. This seems to me really indefensibly outrageous. Since “both” refers to, and emphasizes, “two-ness” it is redundant to talk of “both the two” of anything.