It was a fine March morning, with premonitions of springtime in the air. Maggie, the Border Collie, had dragged me through our mandatory two-mile walk. Whatever the reason -- a good night’s rest, the beauty of the dawn, the prospects of the day -- the face that confronted me in the mirror was smiling. The words of the psalmist came to mind: “This is the day the Lord has made….”
Simultaneously, my daily transfusion of NPR’s “Morning Edition” was coming from the small radio on the bathroom counter. The person being interviewed was a bright and knowledgeable official in one of our governmental agencies. She answered each question directly and with an obvious grasp of the larger issues and circumstances that prompted the inquiry. Then came her moment of grammatical meltdown. She was asked who would have oversight of a particular aspect of the project under discussion, and she responded with no little confidence, “Myself (sic!) and other members of [the agency] will be in charge of that.”
“Myself!” God help me! Am I losing my mind? Did I really hear that? On NPR? From a person who seemed to be both literate and otherwise competent? How can this have happened?
The face in the mirror went from a grin to a grimace. Something inside me tried to apply the brakes of my wrath, suggesting that I hadn’t heard what I knew I had heard, or maybe that it didn’t really matter after all. No big deal. Calm down. But something else inside me cried havoc, encouraging me to shout libelous accusations at the grammatical offender, disparaging her background, her education and her mental capacity.
I shouldn’t have said or even thought those things. But alas, it’s true. I am -- in this respect, at least -- in the camp with William Safire and James J. Kilpatrick. Mea culpa. I have an uncharitable, indeed, unchristian, disdain for people who make grammatical errors in public. Mea maxima culpa.
Having made confession, let me try to make constructive use of my obsession. Let me send a brief but crucial message to those who choose a calling -- ministry, teaching, politics, communications, the law -- that will likely require them to speak in some public setting or medium. And let me send this message particularly to those who are just beginning their vocation; those who are just getting used to the pulpit, the podium, the microphone or the courtroom.
It’s a word about words: Pay attention to the rules of grammar when you speak, lest you be taken for an illiterate fool. Learn the difference, for example, between nominative and objective -- and, by the way, reflexive -- pronouns. And gain an appreciation for the need for agreement between subjects and verbs. Even try to stay away from words like “awesome” and “cool,” and perhaps even words like “cognizant” and “robust,” that are making the pilgrimage from trendy to trite (I once told my mother that someone was “keen” and even though I later married the girl, my Latin teacher mother never let me live it down).
Maybe that personal experience gives rise to this final word of advice to those whose spoken words become part of the public domain: Find yourself a coach; find a verbal editor; find someone in your regular congregation, classroom or audience who is both knowledgeable and honest about such matters; someone who will “speak the truth in love” to you about the things you say, perhaps even someone who would be willing to transcribe your grammatical fluffs on note cards and pass them to you after each public performance. Then have the grace and the confidence to listen to that mentor, and to strive for amendment of your verbal shortcomings and offenses. It can’t do any harm. It could do you a world of good.
And, by the way: Myself and the other shameless grammarians in your listening audience thanks you.
Just kidding!
John W. Kuykendall is President and Thatcher professor of religion emeritus at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
