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So I was listening to a new song on Pandora and my ears perked up as I thought I heard the phrase "Jerry rigged." I thought, who is this Jerry guy, and how did he get so good at rigging anyways?
Does anyone know of any other songs with embarrassing unintentional grammatical errors?
@Ron, that's a great one. I can't believe I never noticed!
@Trombinator, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take issue with Webster including jerry rigged without even citing that jury rigged is preferred, given that the only reason for the existence of the phrase is unintentional misuse.
Now we need a new list of phrases that have become acceptable because of widespread misuse.
Jeff
Jeff, I prefer jury-rigged, you prefer jury-rigged, but after fifty years of use jerry-rigged is the only term some folks have for it, regardless of its bogus start, so who's to say it's wrong? The year before last I might have agreed with you, but after discovering A Way With Words, and this forum and another, I've seriously re-thought my notions of language development and what's right and what's wrong. I am by no means in the "anything goes" camp, but I have a greater awareness of how provincial I was in thinking that my usage is or should be the standard, I have a far broader view of what constitutes correct usage, and I'm a more relaxed and happier guy as a result, though the change in me has caused shock among my offspring.
I think that it would also be wise to acknowledge that at least some of the offensive usage you're talking about may be deliberate, so we should make some allowance for poetic license.
On the other hand, there's still a lot that happens in the language of songs that makes my teeth hurt.
Peter
The deceptive thing is that your tolerance is much higher than you think. You unquestionably tolerate many changes, some ancient, some very recent, without even thinking about them. It is only occasionally that these things catch our attention, and then, sometimes, rub us the wrong way.
For example:
I bet you don't balk at writing an apron. Historically, this was a napron (cf. napkin), and became (mid-15c.) corrupted to the current form;
I bet you consider terrific to mean something very good. Not too long ago (before 1809) this universally meant something that provokes terror, but now you will be misunderstood almost universally if you use it that way;
likewise, fantastic, which meant imaginary till around 1938.
OK, so to alleviate my disappointment with the low response rate to the original question, I Googled the question (note my prominent use of verbification, Peter.) I suggest you go nominate the Wikipedia page for speedy deletion.
Here are some of the mistakes (or rather, microcosms of language evolution) I found most entertaining:
My favorite: Lee Greenwood, “God Bless the U.S.A†– “I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free.†From Regina at AmIRight.com:
While the singer's patriotic sentiments are touching, the relationship of dependent and independent clauses here just doesn't work. That is because the connector, “whereâ€, is a place-referent connector and therefore needs an antecedent of place in the independent clause. But there is no antecedent of place. That is to say, “I'm proud to be in America, Where at least I know I'm free†would work grammatically, but the actual lines here don't, since “an American†does not imply a place, but is followed by “whereâ€, which needs to refer back to a place.
"No I cannot forget from where it is that I come from" (Small Town - John Mellencamp)
"If they say I never loved you, you know they are a liar." — The Doors, "LA Woman"
"What If God Was One Of Us" - Joan Osbourne
"I wish I was special" - Creep by Radiohead
"Lay Down Sally" - Eric Clapton
"Lay Lady Lay" - Bob Dylan
Bryan Adams, “Run to You†– “But that'd change if she ever found out about you and I.â€
All of these appear to be common mistakes found widely in ordinary life. You can find these topics discussed in other threads.
One error unique to a certain kind of song is the alternation between thou and you forms. Most traditional Christian hymns get it right, but some more contemporary Christian songs are second-person sacrilege. This kind of error has little impact on the living language, and affords little useful language insight, except to point out that familiarity with the second person singular is completely absent.
One terrific (in both senses) example song has a painfully beautiful melody. But when it comes up, I elect not to sing the words. I just hum along, trying to think of my happy place. Of the many painful examples in the song, the most recurring are the final two lines of the refrain:
…
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship thee.
(OK. Maybe you need the "thee" for the rhyme. Then why not commit, and use "Thou alone art my heart's desire …"?)
Another song contains:
You've been good to me and I do worship Thee.
(Likewise "Thou art good to me and I do worship Thee."
Another:
Lord, You're holy, holy, Thou art God.
(Oh, come on. You don't even need it for a clumsy rhyme. Try "You are God.")
And, although it has NOTHING to do with the actual misuse of thee or thou, this makes my ears bleed:
Thou, king of Saints,
whom shall not fear Thee?
(Gaakk!)
I know there are also songs that employ the incorrect form of thee/thou/thy/thine, and those that pair thou with the you form of the verb, but I can't think of these examples. If they come up, I will add them.
Don't get me started on *cherubims and *seraphims. Cherubs OR cherubim, please! Make up your mind.
Glenn, do they really sing "Whom shall not fear Thee?"? I've been singing that song all my life (well, since the early '70s) and never noticed. I hope ~I~ wasn't singing it that way. Hey, maybe it's just at your church, somebody misspelled it on the transparency. Yeah, that must be it.
I have to admit mixing "you" with "thee" doesn't worry me very much. I usually notice it, but what the heck (you should forgive the expression). And As the Deer used to be one of my favorites, anyway. But yeah, there's a lot of it going around. I'd like to excuse all that stuff that ends "for you and I" by saying the lyricist had to make it rhyme, but in fact we know from listening to prose that the lyricist probably didn't know it's wrong. Sigh.
In one of the Jurassic Park movies, the second one I think, a butler comes to the door, looks a little snootily at the visitor and asks "Whom shall I say is calling?". Its just possible the director knew it was wrong and did it deliberately, but I don't hold out much hope of it.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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