Pet peeve

For all the understanding of the world that modern science and technology enables, I fear that we are losing an appreciation of the English language and the rules of grammar. For years Barry and I had a particular pet peeve that was often heard during conversations with our daughters and their friends. When recalling a joint trip to the mall with a friend, the speaker would say “Me and my friend went shopping” rather than “my friend and I went shopping.” We cannot be sure how much our hounding them helped, but as teachers of young students I am sure they find it helpful to be conversant in basic rules of grammar.

I started thinking about this this morning when we were listening to NPR and heard the host of the show say “join Dave and I for this discussion…” Would I ever ask someone to “join I (or we) for dinner?” If we cannot rely on NPR hosts to use proper English, there is little hope for the rest of us.

My ability to read has continued to improve, although I still require material to be in a large font, and the effort required makes it difficult for me to read very much in one sitting. Today something reminded us that Barry had long ago set up a Kindle account and purchased some e-books, which would provide a good source of material I could use to practice my reading.

It turns out that I had purchased a few e-books during the months before my diagnosis. I have a faint recollection of having done this in preparation for our annual trip to St. John in February 2012. We have always spent a lot of our time there lounging on the beach and reading. But by early 2012 I was having so much trouble reading that I never so much as looked at that Kindle during those ten days. You may wonder how that could have happened without loud and urgent alarms sounding. Believe me, it is a question I ask myself quite frequently. But it is much easier to think this way after the fact than it was before.

This afternoon we took a look at the books we had ordered a couple of years ago. I should probably be embarrassed to admit this, but I do enjoy light reading, and I had long been a big fan of Faye Kellerman’s Decker/Lazarus series. There were two books sitting on the Kindle server that I had never read. So today, after Barry downloaded her 2012 book, Gun Games, onto my PC, where I can view it in large font with my big screen, I was ready to go.  

And then, on the very first page, I read the following (emphasis mine):

They were coming his way: five of them—three guys, two girls—all of them looking older than him by a couple of years but probably still in high school.

Older than him? It is helpful to think about the meaning of this sentence. The narrator is describing five people who looked older than the unnamed protagonist (the “his” at the beginning of the sentence). What Ms. Kellerman was really trying to say was that the five people looked older than this unnamed “he” did by a couple of years. So I believe the sentence should have read

They were coming his way: five of them—three guys, two girls—all of them looking older than he by a couple of years but probably still in high school.

Instead of spending this past hour reading, I spent it venting about this, first to Barry and then in these words. I have finished now. Thanks for indulging my outburst. Now I can get back to trying to read!

Love,

Rebecca