Thursday, May 13, 2010

Poor grammar in music

Poor grammar and spelling has given me the shits before. I don't proclaim to be an expert in all grammatical rules but when people can't seem to establish the difference between *your* and *you're* (FFS, your is a possessive, you're is a contraction between 'you' and 'are'), and everytime I read the word *definately* on emails or Facebook, I feel like tearing my hair out.

But the newest addition to the list is poor grammar in music, or more specifically the way songwriters seem to have trouble with the verb *to be* in the first person singular present tense - i.e. I am. For example:


"The was I are."
Should be: "The way I am" - 'are' is the conjugation for second person (you are) and third person plural (they are).


"I'mma be on the next level." (or pretty much any other line in the song)
Okay, in this case, they have conjugated the verb correctly if you stop a just 'I'm'. But the insertion of the article 'a', and then having the definitive 'be'...it's just all sorts of wrong. The amusing thing is that when I'm sleeping and this song comes on the radio alarm, it sounds as if they're saying "I'm a bee..."

2 comments:

Hugh Mouse said...

I am so with you on that! Bad grammar grabs my attention. How many people do you know who use the words "convince" and "persuade" incorrectly?!!!

Hugh Mouse said...

Gee. Speaking of incorrect grammar, how often you you hear people use the word "I" incorrectly, as in, "You and I are going somewhere," or "Give the ball to you and I"? The way I learned to get it right is to say the sentence leaving out the "you and" to see if it sounds correct. Works for me!