Twelve months to the day since my last post. Clearly the day after Boxing Day is the day when I take stock and attempt to prioritise my activities. It may seem that blogging should not be placed very high on one’s to-do list, but I believe that it is important for my mental well-being to vent, from time to time, my feelings of annoyance and frustration at the indignities inflicted on the English language.
One distressing example of this is the combining of two words that should not be combined because the combination already exists and has a different meaning or different usage from the one intended. A rather inelegant sentence, but a couple of examples will serve to clarify my meaning.
“Everyday” is an adjective meaning “commonplace”, “ordinary”, “usual”; for example “Being hit over the head with a baseball bat is not an everyday experience”. “Every day” is an adverbial phrase meaning “on each day without exception”; for example “He washed his socks every day“. Of course, the first of these examples could be expressed differently: “It’s not every day that one is hit over the head with a baseball bat”; the second, however, could not. “He washed his socks everyday” is just plain wrong.
Or rather should be wrong. Unfortunately this drip-by-drip erosion of correct usage is probably unstoppable. Another example is the use of “forever” when what is meant is “for ever”. The first means “time and again”, “repeatedly”; the second means “for all time, continuing into the future without end”. I’m forever complaining about the misuse of language, but it’s unlikely that I will be doing so for ever.
This piece has been written rather hurriedly, owing to (not “due to”) a minor illness in the household, and perhaps my examples have not been chosen judiciously enough; be that as it may, these are real assaults on our language and should be resisted by all who love her.