4 Ways That Written English Needs to Catch Up

Allow me to start this article by saying that grammar is stupid. Or, rather, that grammar is not stupid, but we have made it so. Grammar, spelling and conventions were made for the sake of clarity, but the internet has turned some of us into incoherent idiots and the rest of us into nit-picking egomaniacs who care more about the use of "their" than the content of a post.

Who cares about his genocidal warmongering? Look at that terrible conjugation!

Over the years and with the advent of texting and WhedonSpeak, spoken language has veered away from standard English. Sometimes this is a bad thing. I don't ever want to see "Me and her went to the store to see where Mike was at" written anywhere near me. Actually, I don't want to hear it spoken near me either.

In fact...no. Just no.

That being said, there are some ways in which written English just needs to relax some of its standards. This could lead to less confusing blog posts, fewer pointless fights in comments sections, and, most importantly, less boring poetic theory essays.

4. "Y" is Not the Only "Sometimes" Vowel

The letter 'Y' is a tricky little bastard. Sometimes, like in "Very," it acts like a vowel and creates an "E" sound. Sometimes, as in "Young," it acts as a consonant with the harder "Yuh" sound. Y is the gender-bending hermaphrodite of the alphabet and is listed as an afterthought in the catalog of vowels.

"Sure, sailor, I swing both ways...for a price."

What people aren't really taking into consideration, though, is that "Y" is not the only one guilty of dabbling. "O" and "U" are just as bad. And now we have a sad number of people who would say "A union," "A once-in-a-life-time change," "A university" and "A one-time thing" without thinking a second thought suddenly trying to write the same sentences with "an." Because obviously "an" precedes any words that start with vowels. "An university" might look right when you write it, even if you'd never say it out loud.

In this case that just isn't true. Written English has no real rules, just desperate attempts at rules, like a substitute teacher in a 5th grade classroom after recess. Words like "union" and "university" are actually employing the "yuh" sound from the letter Y, and "once" is borrowing heavily from W and acting like he'll pay it back even though he won't.

This is the fault of written English being a stuck-up bitch. It's time to just say things out loud before we write them down and to feel okay about doing that.

3. "Nother" is Totes a Word

The English language is constantly changing to keep up with slang. "Ginormous" recently made it into the dictionary just because people were enjoying playing Frankenstein with our standard lexicon. That's a fine thing to do. Lewis Carroll made up the word "Slithy" to be a cross between "Lithe" and "Slimy" and it totally worked for him.

All that acid helped, too.

So here's the thing. "Nother" is a word. It just is. We've already started a trend of shoving words into other words like the world's least appealing turducken. "Abso-fucking-lutely" is a prime example. It's called expletive infixation, which just means that you enjoy swearing so much that having "fuck" be every other word in a sentence just no longer works for you.

"My day has come."

So we have a term for putting the word "fuck" in the middle of "fantastic," but nobody wants to talk about "nother."

I would not have thought of it at all, except that I found myself, as so many of us do, writing out the transcript of the movie "Star Wars." (Because, as I believe I have stated previously, shut up, that's why.) In said movie, there's a moment where Luke is whining to his uncle like the little bitch that he is. His uncle asks him to stay on the farm for an additional season to help with the harvest.

"You know. So we don't die of thirst in this never-ending, godforsaken desert."

Luke responds with, "But it's a whole nother year!"

Which got me to thinking. Technically this word is "a-whole-nother." The word "another" is broken up by the word "whole." But that's not really what it is. It's "a whole year" and the word "nother" is giving it emphasis. I vote that we embrace this curious little quirk. Let's make "nother" a word. We want to. We're not saying "An-whole-other year." We already use it when we say "That's another thing." What we should be saying is "That's an other thing," but with spoken English it sounds like "That's a nother thing." So screw it. Let's just say that "nother" means "additional" and be done with it.

2. Let's Decide Right Now How "H" is Pronounced

Quick lesson about pronouncing words that start with "H." If the first syllable is emphasized, you would use the word "a" before it. If it's the second syllable, you write "an." For instance, you write a history, but you also write an historical account. A history. An historical account. A hospital. An hospitable environment. Etc.

Oh, but if the "H" is silent then the word is "an" no matter where the emphasis falls. So it would be an honor. To stop talking about this now. Got it?

Good.

Writing all of these different things out is a huge pain in the ass and confusing to boot. Spoken English has a handle on it for the most part, but it feels really stupid to say "An hospitable environment," even though that's technically correct. So I vote that we just make it "an" when the "H" is silent and "a" when it's clearly pronounced. Then we can say and write "A historical event" and not feel like jackasses. Because we'll all be on the same page.

Assuming anyone can even spell "historical" anymore.

1. You Can End a Sentence With a Preposition (Seriously)

Douchebag trollers and pedantic college freshmen will tell you that you can't end a sentence with a preposition. This is any word that relates to space and time. So "with," "up," "about," "since," etc. While you might feel totally comfortable saying, "Who are you going with?" or "I wish you'd lay off," many people insist that this is incorrect. A lot of people won't write it that way, just in case. They'll write "Under what were you sitting?" or "By whom was the book written?"

Which leaves you with extremely archaic, unwieldy and ridiculous sentences. "With whom are you going?" is not something I would ever say to anyone, unless I hated them or had somehow found myself trapped in a Jane Austen nightmare.

"Off is the direction I wish you to fuck."

Language is meant for communication, and frankly, written English is lagging. We are behind the times with the dynamic ways that people interact with each other, and it's time to step it up. Relaxing our standards seems difficult, but that's a historical trend that's going to be a whole nother issue to deal with.