What she said instead was "Them ones wasn't what I was looking for." Okaaaaaaaaaaaaay... There are so many things wrong with that sentence. Where to begin?
1. Them ones. Them ones??? Really people??? Where do grammar mistakes like this begin? Are parents not reading to their children anymore? "Them" should never be uttered next to "ones".
Try using: "these" if the items are close to you or "those" if the items are farther away.
2. Them ones wasn't. Even my dictionary on the computer goes crazy with the squiggly red line when I type that. Why? You guessed it. Subject/verb agreement! Ones=Plural. However wasn't= singular. It never, ever sounds good to mix singular with plural in the same sentence. I don't care what the rap stars say. They are in the boardrooms for a reason!
Try using: "Weren't". In other words, use the plural form of the verb.
I never saw a mistake like with my students but it was a common error among my small town high school classmates. To me, it sounds worse than nails on a chalkboard and is just as offensive as if someone lit up a cigarette and blew it into my face.
And remember, subject/verb agreement is your friend!
11 comments:
I wonder how many common grammar mistakes are made only by native speakers. Does anyone know? What is worse, I think, is that English is relatively easy to make your subject and verb agree, because there are less conjugations than other languages.
Also, along the lines of agreement - am I the only one that notices when there is only one comment on a blog post, and you view it from the blog home page, it says "1 comments" ?
haha...I did not even notice that at all Amanda. You have good eyes, or maybe I just never read that.
I think native speakers of English probably make more mistakes than an advanced/bilingual non-native speaker because we have less classes that emphasize grammar and spelling and such...
I probably just spend way too much time on Blogger and that's why I noticed it.
There seriously needs to be more emphasis on grammar and spelling for us native speakers. It's becoming pathetic.
"Them ones" is closely followed by "Youse guys" for me, grinds on my last nerve!
I think native speakers make different mistakes, not necessarily more. We are willing to forgive the ESL speaker for using the wrong past participle or using a plural verb with a singular subject ("people is"). We correct (our students, not just the guy on the street) but we don't cringe. I think we have higher expectations of native speakers, and of course they're going to let us down with some really bad habits. Not just bad grammar, but a total misuse of the language.
Or, it's a cultural manifestation of the evolution of the language as spoken in the USA and Canada and some day our notebooks will be filled with examples of "The correct use of "done" as a verb
in modern language"......"I done what he told me." The Brits and native English speakers from other countries don't seem to make the same mistakes as North Americans. It's not that they speak "better", just different, with different idioms and twists of the language.
And blah blah blah. I feel like a geek, lol. Thanks for letting me be nerdy with you.
Cancuncanuck, I agree. British or Australian English is not necessarily better just different and I think they have their own mistakes.
CancunCanuck, I believe the bad habits and poor grammar are more of a symptom of the culture than anything. Language and culture are pretty inseparable as it is. And please, feel free to be as nerdy with us as you want. That's what we're here for!
I suspect this is a regional variation. A Google Books search turns up some occurrences of "them ones" in dialogue, including a book from 1914. It's in Lovecraft too.
Goofy, oh it probably is. I think this particular issue is much more common in the Midwest. I don't hear it AS much from other parts of the country. But, nevertheless, it still sounds horrible.
Fair enough, but in calling it a grammatical mistake, it seems to me that you're not considering the context. It's a regional variant in casual conversation, and regional variants abound - I use some, and I'm sure you do too. It would be a mistake if it was in a written essay, but it's not.
Goofy, I will say I have to agree with you for the most part.
I do not think it is a mistake in the sense that it is wrong to speak in such a way. A dialect, of course, is not a mistake, but natural evolution of language.
I would like to see if someone can link more information about regional dialects in the Western Upper Midwest region. I hear the Upper Midwestern Dialect, especially in the Wisconsin-Minnesota areas is pretty large in terms of speakers.
In the Eastern part of the Upper Midwest region (where I am from) phrases such as "Them ones" are presented in regular conversation, on par with other distinctive speech patterns borrowing from certain characteristics of AAVE.
It is not strange to hear even politicians slipping occasionally into a dialect.
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