…I can almost feel Solwisesteve’s despair !!
as for “we was” v “I were” … even I despair 
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Thank you for paying attention😉 That’s another one I hate, you know what I mean?
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English has always evolved and will continue to do so. However, I do sometimes cringe at the tendency to use “we” instead of “I” but then recognise that is my tendency towards being an ageing dinosaur, that is behind this. I have also given up getting het-up about American spellings that sometimes crop up in UK publications. Feeling much calmer as a result.
Similarly, using “I” when “me” is correct - “He gave a rather nice lunch to my husband and I”
Even more difficult, for some reason:
“who’s there?”
“Me”
Of course, “I” would be the correct response - because “am” is assumed. People would not say “Me am”, presumably.
But that has long ago passed into normal usage.
Only because that is what we are used to hearing.
You would have hated working for one of the companies that I worked for some years ago as a computer programmer. Most of their customers were British, some European, but we had to write the user manuals with American spelling, because they hoped to get into the American market. That seemed really bad to me - the Americans rarely, if ever, used English spelling for the UK market, and it seemed to me that if the American users couldn’t understand the manual if it used English spelling, then they were probably too dumb to use the software.
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True, but that’s the whole point of evolution, even with regard to the spoken word.
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For some time, dearly beloved and I have seen changes in our daughter’s speech. It started with “Can I get…” instead of “May I have…” or “I would like…”.
The latest, which we see repeated in 20 and 30 somethings is “That you/was gifted me.”
It grates, dearly beloved says that it is not how we brought her up. Her husband does not use the same language. Given that an internet search shows Merriam Webster supports the use, we guess she picked it up from a manager who was American.
As regards television, we can hide away with Talking Pictures TV and not even have to be trendy watching in HD.
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My sons likewise, the older of the two (almost 30) more so than his brother. I blame American television trash, now readily viewable. (Probably of interest because there is too much trash on British TV!)
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That should be ‘none of us is perfect’. Correct use of the subjunctive is even rarer than correct use of the nominative.
Mark (mostly tongue-in-cheek)
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What really gets my goat is the cavalier disregard for the Middle English language you hear these days. Only last week my wife was in the garden and commented that small birds make melodies. Surely the correct phrase is “smale foweles maken melodye”? She’s spending too much time with Romans innit?
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Oooh ooh ooh, another one.
‘He borrahd it to me’
Or ‘I lent it from him’.
F*S
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Ebor, I wondered how long it would be before somebody challenged that. I have rectified that error and changed the “are” into “is”
My only defence (defense to our north American cousins) is the statement above, which preceded the offence.
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Incorrect use of fewer and less really gets my goat.
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@anon4216120 I find comfort in the delivery of the news readers and continuity announcers on Radio 4. To name a few, Caroline Nicholls, Vaughan Savage, Susan Rae, Vijay Allis and Zeb Soanes are a pleasure to hear and the perfect antidote.
Chris
Ah, there never was a word “ye”. Back in the day clerks would regularly abbreviate regularly used words, often with a symbol. Such was “the” where the th was replaced with a symbol called a “thorn” that looked like the letter “y”. If it says ye it ain’t old.
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“Now readily viewable” ? I think I was watching trash US tv since the ‘60s🙂
My pet hate is the misuse of the word ‘like’. I’m so like really like fed up with it. You would like think that some people have like no grasp of the English language like at all …
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