I love words. I love everything about them. I love grammar and spelling and the art of putting words together so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. I love all the different ways words can be used to express ideas and emotions. Sometimes when I’m reading I lose track of the big picture because I get so caught up in the intricacies and nuances of the individual words. A well-turned phrase can make me positively giddy and the perfect title can spark a ferocious case of writer’s envy. (The Bonfire of the Vanities, anyone? Exquisite.)

It should go without saying, then, that I love languages. I love learning languages and I love learning about languages. In particular I love the English language. I’m rather a purist about my beloved mother tongue, and the rampant abuse I see it subjected to daily has made me fiercely protective of it. The “dumbing down” of the language (“Irregardless” in the dictionary? Seriously? It’s enough to make one weep.) raises my hackles like you would not believe. Almost as bad is the widespread misuse of certain words and phrases that are supposed to sound a little highbrow (e.g. “begging the question,” which is NOT the same as “raising the question,” using “myself” when “me” is nearly always the correct choice, and perhaps most important, writing or saying “more importantly” when one means to convey that the next point is more important). It sets my teeth on edge, all of it.

Since moving to Sweden, I’ve discovered a special dark place in my grammarian’s heart that I’ve reserved for the Swedes’ ill treatment of that which I love. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve got no axe to grind with people who make the honest mistakes that everyone makes when speaking a foreign language. No, what gets my goat are the things like painfully bad English on signs at international airports and in newspaper columns written by terminally hip journalists. In other words, things written by people who really should know better, people who are paid to know better. And the slang … oh, their abuse of our slang.

It’s all too much. Just thinking about it gives me a headache. Rather than going on, I’ll leave you with a link to a terrific article on this very subject, Show Some Respect for Our Expletives. Give it a look, why don’t you? Me, I need to lie down.