The Grammar Police

The English language is under siege. When I was young there were rules that everyone understood, such as "i" before "e," except after "c," except for February, which has 28 days.

Not anymore. Nowadays anything goes. There is no one accepted grammatical structure. Case in point: the speech patterns of former President George W. Bush. Nouns turn into verbs; new words spring up in the dictionary like weeds; adjectives are everywhere; conjunctions are joining the independent clauses; and worst of all are the prepositions.

Kids today. There used to be a rule that you couldn't end a sentence in a preposition.* Sure, sometimes it would happen, but we knew it was wrong, and we felt really bad when it happened. Now you see prepositions ending sentences with impunity, which is also wrong.

"What does it matter?" you may ask. "Doesn't grammar stifle creativity? What do we need those stupid rules for, anyhow?"

That shows how much you know. Take away the rules of grammar and you take away the English Department's most powerful sanction. If it's okay to speak English any old way, then what's the incentive to read a book like The Mayor of Casterbridge?** If, for example, what George W. Bush is muttering is considered English, then why should anyone ever bother learning the more eloquent version?

By now I've probably convinced you that there is a serious language problem confronting America today, and as a responsible citizen, you are wondering, "What can I do, Sam?"

I'm glad you asked. You can start by voting for me to be the next mayor of San Francisco. Lately there have been rumors going around that I am not eligible to be mayor. Let me put these rumors to rest: I was never convicted of a felony,*** and anyhow, if Donald Trump can run for president, then I can sure as heck run for mayor of San Francisco.

As mayor I would institute a citywide Mayor's Grammar Fitness Program (MGFP), or "mugfip," requiring our youngsters to parse 100 sentences before sunrise every day, like we all did when we were young and lived on farms; back when we treated our parents with respect and played wholesome games like "Red Light, Green Light" after completing our chores; back when we memorized poems, because that's what poems are for. (Is "for" a preposition?)

Okay, I made up the part about memorizing poems. My father, David W. Barry, did memorize poems when he was young—poems such as The Song of Hiawatha by the great American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Dark behind it rose the forest,

Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,

Rose the firs with cones upon them;

Bright before it beat the water,

Beat the clear and sunny water,

Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

I'm not sure that knowing The Song of Hiawatha ever helped my father in any way, but I do know that it was featured in Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt, a 1941 Warner Brothers cartoon starring Bugs Bunny and Hiawatha.

In closing:

There is a grammar crisis in America
It has something to do with George W. Bush, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and my father
Vote for me to be the next mayor of San Francisco, even if you live in Omaha, Nebraska.

Thank you. And God bless America.

*But is it okay to end a sentence with the word "preposition"?

**There is none.

***The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor in a plea bargain.