Friday, November 30, 2007

Speaking of grammar...

As I noted in this post, I get annoyed by egregious grammatical errors in others' speech. Well, my six year old son takes after me. Last night right before we were going to pray the family Rosary I said something using the subjunctive in a fairly archaic manner. Since he didn't recognize the form, he thought it was a grammatical error. He insisted that I correct my grammar, which I didn't. So, when it was his turn to share his intentions for the Rosary he said, "I wanna pray that dad's grammar improve."

That's the kind of house I live in.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did he really say "that Dad's grammar improve?" Even that's getting to be archaic these days.
~Timothy J. J. Gotcher, B. A. (Cand.)

Robert Gotcher said...

I don't remember, although I do remember that I though he phrased it in a fairly sophisticated way for a six year old.

Anonymous said...

And did you know that the passive voice has begun to disappear? We now have soup that "eats like a meal," i.e. "can be/is eaten like a meal." Very intriguing.

Anonymous said...

Robert - if you don't blog this PRECIOUS story over at HMS blog, I'm going to link to it for you. It is extremely sweet. My kids don't have anywhere near as good a grasp of grammar, but my five-year-old did correct our parish home-based religious education group, after he learned a bit of Latin. We were getting ready to pray and someone said, "Let us pray." And he corrected, "OREMUS...let us pray!"

But your story is better. I'm praying that your grammar improve as well. ;)

Robert Gotcher said...

Pam,

Feel free. It will give you a chance to share your story.