It is difficult to conceive how anyone who is making a business of speaking from the public desk can be content to go through life making the most common errors of speech. Out of deference to the workers who are rounding out a lifetime of service in the cause of God, I wish to be thoroughly understood as not referring especially to them in the " kindly correctives " herewith offered. I do believe, however, that none are too old to make improvement, and that those who have reached an age of from forty to sixty could accomplish surprising results by aiming to correct one error a day. A vest-pocket memorandum of common errors in speech is all the equipment necessary, and this may be made up from numerous books and suggestions offered. By slipping this memorandum into the little pocket opposite the watch, and consulting it as frequently as one does his timepiece, will within a very short time produce amazing results in the correction of errors in speech.
To the younger workers in the cause of God, I would say, Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that makest a slip of speech, if thou continuest in the evil way day after day.
Coming to the office today, I overheard a man by the way, exclaim, " I have took." Reader, you may not say,
" I have took," but is that any worse than to say, "It don't work that way; " "My wife and myself were there; " There is lots of things we don't know yet; " "I set with him in church last night; " "I laid clown on the seat and went to sleep; " "It wasn't him"?
If the reader of this article finds that he makes any one of the errors mentioned, or if he makes all of them, what excuse would he offer if he continues to do so after there is pointed out to him the correct form of expression and the principle underlying it? This is a question which I am unable to answer for him, but it is a question which every man should answer for himself.
That there need be no excuse for continuing to make the seven slips in the correct use of our mother tongue, as stated, I herewith give the correct form of speech, with 'slight variation in each case:
1. I have taken them. Not, " I have took." We were taken home. It was taken out of the first amount. Taken by and large, it is a general truth.
2. It doesn't work that way. Not, " It don't work that way." Elder Brown doesn't arrive until one o'clock. The world doesn't seem so large as it did once. That report doesn't sound right to me. He doesn't look well. This common error of using " don't" for " doesn't" can easily be corrected if one will expand the contraction " don't" into its full form " do not." No one would think of saying, " It do not work that way," " He do not look well," etc.
3. My wife and / were there. Not, " My wife and myself were there." The word " myself " in such connection emphasizes the speaker when this is obviously not intended. If, under some circumstances, it is desired to give such emphasis, the proper way would be, " my wife and I myself were there." Never say, " My wife and myself," for " myself " can never be used as a pronoun in subject form. It does have one other use than that of emphasis, and that is as a reflexive; but in every such instance it must follow a verb or a preposition. For example: " I hurt myself ;" " I can do nothing of myself ;" "I have taken the responsibility upon myself; " " I deceived myself in that thing."
4. There are many things we don't know yet. Not, ' There is lots of things we don't know yet." " Lots " is a poor, threadbare, wornout, cheap form of word which people use carelessly and without dignity, in place of the simple and appropriate little word " many," or for emphasis, "great many." There is just as much dignity and standing to the word " lots " as to that oft-repeated slang term " oodles." However, we are not dealing with the choice of words in this corrective sentence, but rather with the point in grammar which is involved by using the word " are " instead of " is." In my observation of the language of preachers — without any intention of being especially observing — I find the use of the singular for the plural one of the most frequent of common errors; and using the word is for are is perhaps the most frequent of all.
5. I sat with him in church last night. Not, " I set with him." Everything that has legs and can bend them to a sitting posture, must sit, never set. It is proper to say, " The sun has set." The reason the sun doesn't sit is because it has no legs and cannot assume the sitting posture; consequently it is proper to say "the sun sets."
6. I lay down on the seat and went to sleep. Not, " I laid down." Anything that assumes a reclining or prostrate posture, whether man, or beast, or bird, or a tree, crooked stick, or pencil, when spoken of in the present tense, "lies" down, never " lays" down. In the past tense, the same class in the same posture is designated by the term " lay." For example: " The man lay on the ground all night; " or, " The pencil lay on the shelf." It is never proper to use the word " laid " in this connection. In the present tense, no man can ever " /ay " without laying himself or something else. In the past tense, he has always " laid " himself or something else down. To illustrate: the homely hen is said to "lay; " but if she is a dutiful hen, she always lays something.
7. It wasn't he. Not, " It wasn't him." "It was she; It was they; It was I; It ought to be he; It must be she; It can't be I; It might have been we; It never should have been they."
All these, and a hundred other variations and combinations with forms of the verb " to be " almost invariably require the subject form of the pronoun either before or after it. About the only exception to this is in the technical form, such as " They took him to be me; " " He thought them to be us." In this form one is easily guided in the form of the second pronoun by making it the same as the pronoun immediately preceding the " to be," if there is one.
