Monday, September 22, 2008

Kalleh, the Peevologist

According to some linguist types on Wordcraft, I am a "peevologist" because I think the following is ungrammatical:

"My mother she is good."

Now come on.  I can understand that one can split infinitives or use "who" in the accusative, or end a sentence with a preposition.  But "my mother she is good" is perfectly acceptable? There was the admission that it could be considered a "usage"  error or an irregular style.  One argument was that it could be considered an apposition, as in "We the people of the United States...", but clearly it isn't.  Now, if it would have been written, "She, my mother, is good," I suppose so.  Then there was talk about it being often used by non-native speakers.  Perhaps, but does that make it grammatical?  Of course then there was the comment that we peevologists don't make a distinction between spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  This clearly isn't a punctuation or spelling error.

IT'S A GRAMMATICAL ERROR!

There.  I feel better already!

2 comments:

Cat Herself said...

Seems to me more like a colloquial way of speaking. It's a sort of quaint way of adding another word, one more than you need, to say something.

Kalleh said...

Oh, I disagree, but I must be wrong...