I know I’m old, but bad grammar will never be cool
QUIT complaining about bad grammar. It makes you seem old. That was the tip I was going to offer you: that whining about the decline of the English language does not make for a youthful and hip image.
It’s also nothing new. Bad grammar has been annoying people as they get older for centuries. It really infuriated Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels. So much so that he wrote an official complaint to the British government in 1712 lamenting the “daily Corruptions, Abuses and Absurdities” for offending “against every Part of Grammar”.
It’s not only old English-speakers who bemoan bad grammar. “Standards are constantly slipping,” complains an older German on the Berlin In English website, fingering her country’s youth. “These teenagers today! They don’t know any grammar. They’ve never been taught punctuation!”
Then, just as I was about to offer a warning to moderate such tirades against bad grammar, I discovered the best one ever.
Grammar Police, do yourself a favour and check out the wildly popular new music video Word Crimes on YouTube. “It’s quite apparent, your grammar’s errant, you’re incoherent,” sings Al Yancovic to the tune of Blurred Lines.
A word about the song that the parody clown prince chose for his video-mocking bad grammar. It’s by singer Robin Thicke and Happy song producer Pharrell Williams. If you think you don’t know it, get a youth to hum it to you and you’ll recognise the tune. (Unless you never listen to radio and have ignored new music since you replaced your Carole King and The Doors LPs with CDs.)
Blurred Lines has been dubbed the most controversial song of the decade. So sexist it’s been described as “rapey”, the video was banned on YouTube. Child-actress-turned-popstar Miley Cyrus sang this slimy but sticky song with Thicke at last year’s Grammy Awards.
Aiming to shatter her Disney image, she wore a faux-naked costume. A giant foam finger was involved in the requisite twerking. Negative reactions from people of all ages made this the most tweeted about event in history. (See what you’re missing if you don’t follow #mileysmallass on Twitter.)
Despite all this – no, because of it – sales of Blurred Lines broke sales records for downloads and video views. You can see why the tune is perfect for parody.
Let us pause to note that the artist behind this comedy song, Word Crimes, is someone you may remember from the 1980s. That was when Al Yancovic had his biggest hits, with parodies of songs by Michael Jackson ( Eat It) and Queen ( Another One Rides the Bus).
Now Weird Al, as Yancovic is fondly known, is responsible for the world’s top music album. The 54-year-old California-born comedian, singer and erstwhile accordion player of Yugoslav descent is enjoying the first Billboard Number 1 of his career. His Mandatory Fun is the first comedy album to top the charts since the hit songs of Allan Sherman and Bob Newhart in the early 1960s.
So take heart if you fear, as Yancovic did until last month, that you peaked in the mid-’80s. “If you told me 30 years ago this would happen, if you told me 2 WEEKS ago, I never would’ve believed it,” tweeted @alyancovic.
Are you wondering how Baby Boomer Al managed to beat recording artists half his age? He simply read the writing on the wall about the music industry.
That the old
model
wasn’t working. Mainly because the youthful target market is not buying music in the ways it used to.
“As it turns out, there is a thing called the internet,” was entrepreneurial Al’s conclusion, “and stuff does go out there whether the suits like it or not.”
When he first tried to explain his planned shift to digital distribution it resulted in headlines like: WEIRD AL SAYS HIS NEXT ALBUM WILL BE HIS LAST! “That’s inaccurate and extremely misleading,” Al wrote on his blog more than a year ago. “But I guess WEIRD AL IS CAREFULLY WEIGHING HIS OPTIONS AND ISN’T ENTIRELY SURE WHAT HE’S DOING AFTER HIS NEXT ALBUM! isn’t quite as catchy, headline-wise.”
My New Old Self is
delighted about Al’s late-career blooming. And happy that his live shows reportedly draw what he calls “a multigenerational audience, a family bonding experience”.
So forget my tip about slating bad grammar in public, now that Grammatic Al has made it trendy. What you should remember is that Al is always a step ahead of you. To wit, he has reportedly inserted a split infinitive – gasp! – in his chart-topping video. Grammar Police, see if you can spot his premeditated Word Crime.