Re: Language police necessary (Opinion, July 31)
I just read Tim Collins’ column, and I am compelled to offer my service in any language police force he might lead.
However, my concern would be that people like us may not need an enforcement organization as much as we need a support group to hold each other’s hands (figuratively and literally) when a cringe-worthy moment of language desecration confronts us.
My experience in speaking up as often as I have in the face of grammatical transgression is generally unedifying both to the transgressor and myself, polite as I may be in delivering helpful guidance.
The challenge now is where to find hope when the world seems to be “going to hell in a handcart.”
Language skills, both spoken and written, continue to atrophy from our digital obsessions and through the near extinction of reading as a daily, diligent, habit that not so long ago was sine qua non to living a good life.
But I’m no saint. I confess to a Twitter addiction and my diet of good literature has waned considerably in recent years. Still, there’s some fight left.
If there is any way I could help Tim Collins’ cause to mitigate the onset of grammatical apocalypse, I stand ready and will bring my own truncheon. Lead on, Tim, lead on.
Allan McGirr, Surrey
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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