Ready to draw the line in the grammar sand

Four generations back, every classroom in my Chicago school had six rows of eight golden oak desks and chairs bolted to the floor. Each desk had a slot across the top for pencils and stick pens, and there was an inkwell in the upper right-hand corner. One teacher taught in each room with no aides or mother helpers. The teacher was the authority figure, and classrooms were always quiet. We were there to learn; playing and talking were for recess and after school. We memorized arithmetic tables, state capitals and grammar rules. Books were supplied by the Chicago Board of Education and were not to be marked up or torn, and they were returned at the end of the semester.

Times have changed, and for the most part, I’m glad. Kids weren’t meant to be regimented and quiet for such a long time. I can’t say that I embrace every new style of clothing or music, but my parents in the 1930s and ‘40s shook their heads at our bobby sox, sloppy joe sweaters, and swing music with crazy dancing. It is a fact that change is inevitable, so I usually accept another fact that what is, is, and I just get on with my life.

What drives me wild, though, is the use of the English language. Nouns have become verbs, like to scrapbook, and words have been abbreviated so that the original is hardly ever used. Think of delicatessen (now deli), identification (aka ID), and arithmetic (now known as math), OK. I can deal with that. Pronouns, however, have gone completely out of control.

I’ve lived in eight states and one South American country, and in each place there is some phrasing or special words peculiar to the area. In Mississippi, we said, “Y’all’s” and “We might could do it.” In Rochester, N.Y., we ate “hots” and “hamburgs.” In Chicago, people said “yous” or “yous guys” for the plural of you.

Everywhere people use the wrong pronouns: “Me and him went to the movies,” or “George and I’s marriage has lasted a long time,” or “Thanks to all who helped she and I with the potluck.” That’s easily fixable! In the quiet of your own mind, leave out the other person and listen to what you’d be saying. “Him couldn’t go to the movies, so me went alone.” It’s fixed!

Spokane, however, wins Granny’s Grammar Prize for the word “guys’s.” What part of speech is that? I’ve heard people who speak well otherwise and present them themselves well say something like, “I could use your guys’s help,” or “How was your guys’s vacation?” This is the only place where this phrase is used in everyday conversation, and it rattles my eardrums! The word “your” is both singular and plural. It doesn’t need to be modified, although “guys” seems to be the accepted use as plural “you,” If you want to be all inclusive, “you two” or “you folks” sounds better. I’d even settle for “y’all” or, grudgingly, “you guys.” Just deliver me from “your guys’s.” I have to draw the line somewhere.