The Dumbing Down of America

As a writer, I’ve been having a love affair with the language for as long as I can remember. A person’s ability to put words together in an original and exciting way to describe a scene or evoke an emotion is enough to quicken my heartbeat. In truth, I can get positively giddy over a brilliantly executed turn of phrase.

So it’s no wonder that the glaring errors I see in print and hear in the spoken word are causing me enormous emotional pain. Recently on NPR: “Her and her colleague…” Regularly in The New York Times: “V.I.P.’s.” “1900’s.” Why the apostrophe? Where’s the possessive? I just don’t get it. I can forgive the rural produce stand with its handprinted signs offering “tomato’s” and “strawberry’s”—but The New York Times?

Just now, I was on hold with the Social Security Administration, and the recorded message kept repeating, “Your call will be answered in the (pronounced “thuh”) order it was received.” Whatever happened to the rule about pronouncing it “thee” when it precedes a word that begins with a vowel? Are the rules changing, unbeknownst to me, or is this country simply dumbing down?

I see grammatical errors in best sellers and print ads. I hear them on national radio broadcasts and primetime television shows. And they make my head hurt. If this abuse of the language continues, I fully expect we’ll be back to grunting in 200 years.