Er, Can I get an adverb around here?
March 5, 2009 by Guest Post · 10 Comments
This week, Mothership, our Brit mum based in the US highlights the grammar divide…
I am on a mission.
I have accepted by now that my children are not the same nationality as me and are more likely to play soccer than football, eat fries than chips, and hit the surf than go to the seaside.
I don’t mind that, and I even secretly envy my beautiful, blonde Californian children their complete confidence that every day in their world will be filled with beaches, mountains, and endless rows of perfect white teeth.
I do try to keep some British traditions alive in our household. I am ‘Mummy’ not ‘Mom’ (at least to my face), we drink tea at the appropriate times, accompanied by imported Digestives bought at unbelievable expense because it feels culturally important. I force-feed them Marmite soldiers with their boiled eggs, and on the rare occasions when it does rain here I make everyone put on wellies and go for a bracing walk in the deluge seeking sodden ducks to feed. Mostly the others indulge me. I think they regard my attempts with a mix of amused fondness – this being just another part of my general eccentricity – and quiet pity; “Poor Mother – we must do our best by the old thing” etc.
There is, however, one very important aspect of a British childhood that I am determined my children should not miss.
They will not get this in America.
Not without my intervention and constant vigilance. I consider it to be one of the most crucial gifts that I can impart to my beloved offspring. It’s one you probably take for granted, but here, it is almost a lost art, like crocheting your own doilies or ironing knickers.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you: Adverbs
That’s right, the friendly ‘-ly’ words.
They just don’t believe in them here. That’s why they always say, when you ask them how they are or where they are going;
“I’m real good” or “I got to run to the store real quick”
This drives me insane. I want to run around correcting everyone, but obviously I can’t do that and have to content myself with just doing it to my children who are already annoyed with me. (Oh, my dears! This is just the beginning of me being annoying!)
Funnily enough, for a time I attended high school in the USA and can vividly recall lessons on adverbs in English class (I was amazed this was happening so late in the game). Extraordinarily, even though almost everyone in the class passed the test, nobody seemed to use them in real life. Not even the teacher.
I find this is true, too, with my daughter’s preschool. Her teacher has a master’s degree in early childhood education but the woman continually tells Four that she’s “Done real great!” when she’s written her name on a painting or eaten all her lunch. I am aghast that they let the educators get that far in the system and still not know how to speak.
How can this be? I am feeling anxious about Kindergarten, too. Will her teacher be an illiterate? Am I going to have to set myself up as the person who tells Four that her teacher is wrong? That is not going to be a good thing from a role model perspective, although part of me thinks a little individual thinking is not a bad concept to introduce, provided, of course, she doesn’t use that logic on me. She’s pretty clever so it wouldn’t be a huge leap for her. Hmm. Tricky.
I have even got to the point where I am ambivalent about library story times which we used to attend religiously every week, because some of the books that they select to read eschew adverbs. Yes, it appears that many American children’s book editors also find that the addition of ‘ly’ to a verb descriptor is no longer necessary and, shockingly, this transgressions slip past the librarians too and into the impressionable minds of young Americans. What is this country coming too?
I see a long, uncomfortable future as a clip-voweled, stern-voiced matron, constantly snapping at my surfer kids to “Speak properLY and with correct grammar” in manner of 1940’s schoolmarm.
However, all is not lost. I do note that Barack Obama regularly uses adverbs, so perhaps he and I together can start a new speech revolution? He promised change, I demand it. Perhaps together we can realLY make a difference!
Mothership is a former pop star, singer, composer, and writer from London who was abducted by aliens (a German one who promised chocolates and a cleaning lady) and brought to southern California to live in a small town by the sea with her son ‘One’ and daughter ‘Four’. Keep up with her escapades on her blog, Motherhood: The Final Frontier
Here, here!
My dear Amercican customers often ask, “when will this order ship?” and I am dying to say, “I’m sorry, do you mean when will this be posted?” or even “shipped” I can live with. But ship? It doesn’t send itself you know!
I expect the Americans think all we British are rude and have bad teeth though!
Abby, you have honestly just reduced me to tears of laughter with that last line!
While I agree that appropriate use of grammar is important, and am a fan of your writing in general, I am not a fan of this rant. Too much Gimp. I feel realLY sorry for your daughter’s preschool teacher. She likely doesn’t even know you’ve made fun of her behind her back. Nothing “proper” about that.
Domestic Engineer, I’m not making fun of her preschool teacher. I don’t consider it to be a joke when my child is convinced that something incorrect is true simply because it’s uttered by someone she looks up to and worships. This kind of programming is pretty hard to undo later in life and although my tone may be lighthearted in describing it here, when dealing directly with the school on issues like these (which I most certainLY do!) I often find that I am met with a stunning indifference. I think that this is rather sad. And not very proper.
I do not suggest that poor grammar is a joke. The teacher’s grammar, as you have described it, would bother me, as well. It was not clear from your essay that you had actually confronted the teacher, or the school, about this issue. I take it from your comment that you have, and were given an unsatisfactory response. That is too bad.
Also, it should be noted that some “rules” of grammar are nothing of the sort, but rather conventions to which particular groups subscribe. For example, in your essay, you wrote, “I have even got to the point…” Is that proper grammar? Should it not be, “I have even gotten to the point…” Not sure if there is a hard and fast rule here, but that is exactly my point.
Domestic Engineer, I think the point that Mothership is making is about her rightly expecting that her daughter’s teacher use proper grammar. The whole idea of going to school is that your child should be afforded a good standard of education and this is not about Mothership’s grammar. Her columns are written anonymously and give a snapshot of aspects of her life abroad. There is not an expectation that she has to give detailed blow by blow accounts of everything connected to this subject, such as her speaking with the teacher. At the end of the day, my mother’s grammar and level of education was not the same as my teachers and she ensured that I had opportunities that she didn’t. If she had been confronted with the same issue and said “Well my grammar’s not at a teaching standard so who am I to talk” it wouldn’t really have gotten either of us anywhere.
NML,
Under the cloak of anonymity, we become bold in our statements about others and other cultures. However, Mothership’s anonymity has been compromised by her own actions. She emailed friends and acquaintances informing them of her blog and then through her blog, informed them of this column. She must be aware that those in her community are actually reading her words. Perhaps parents from her daughter’s preschool, or even the preschool teacher herself?
I agree that Mothership has the right to expect that her daughter’s teacher uses proper grammar. But in criticizing the teacher publicly, even under the guise of anonymity, Mothership does open herself up to a critique of her own grammar. Not that it really matters. Mothership’s writing is excellent and entertaining, even if there are grammatical differences from what I learned in school.
Make no mistake, I enjoy reading Mothership’s perspective on cultural differences. I appreciate her humor and her darkness. I just didn’t enjoy the flavor of this particular essay. It felt a bit mean-spirited to me, especially since there is a real possibility the teacher may read Mothership’s words.
Wow! Controversy!
I’m thrilled!
Also, to reassure anyone else made anxious by this, as I told Domestic back on my own blog, I did actually speak to Four’s teacher about the grammar. She was pretty indifferent which was (in American) a bummer. I’m usually only rude about my husband behind his back on the blog.
I have now been made rather anxious about
have got to the point
and
have gotten to the point
I actually looked it up on a few different websites and it would appear to be, as Domestic suggests, a convention rather than a rule, and the UK favours ‘have got to ‘ and the US ‘have gotten to’
or else I am not as clever as I what I like to think
You just hit one of my BIGGEST pet peeves.
I am, to the horror of everyone around me, a grammar nazi. I will correct you. I can’t help it.
Pronouns don’t need apostrophes. They’re included.
And get your case right. Him and me didn’t go to the store, nor did you get that from he and I.
BUT ADVERBS! What happened to adverbs? DID I MISS THAT MEMO?
If you try to do “good” around me, you will be reprimanded. FASTLY.