LEND ME YOUR EAR: A PICTURE OF JANE OR JANE'S PICTURE

Some time has passed since we have given special attention to double constructions. Many speakers and writers seem to have forgotten all about double negatives, double comparisons, double modals, and double possessives, so perhaps a rerun is in order.

Double negatives were formerly taught in the primary grades. If a pupil in our class said, "I ain't got no ruler," our teacher beat us to yelling, "That means you do have a ruler!"

I take that back. In my day, teachers had too much dignity to yell. But their esprit proved infectious, and we were the ones who yelled. Never mind that "I Ain't Got Nobody" was a popular song in our childhood. Poetic license was also explained to us in grade school, and the next line of the song, "Nobody cares for me," told us what the singer meant.

The only double negative that meets with our approval these days appears in a TV commercial for Sara Lee. "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee" means there is nobody who doesn't like Sara Lee, and to me, this is a neat and amusing trick.

Our grade school teachers also taught us about the comparison of adjectives: they come in degrees. For example, the inflected forms of the adjective "pretty" are pretty, prettier, prettiest. Meaning we couldn't say Barbara was more prettier than her daughter. She was either prettier, or more pretty. But more pretty sounded unpretty, so we settled for prettier. However, if Barbara had been considered "beautiful," we'd have chosen more beautiful rather than beautifuler, which was extremely unbeautiful to sensitive ears.

Which form to use is up to us. Mistakes in usage abound, especially among sportscasters and politicians. Top athletes are said to be more faster or more stronger than their teammates. Clinton has been called our most handsomest president since Kennedy.

In Shakespeare's day, this double construction was common in both speech and writing. Nonetheless, I prefer to believe it was Julius Caesar, not the playwright himself, who gave us the immortal phrase the most unkindest cut of all. Even so, not much was done about such usages until the 18th century, when British grammarians demanded that the double comparison be forever condemned.

"Double modal" is a term used by authorities to describe common expressions such as didn't ought, shouldn't ought, ought to of, and might could. These doubles are merely dialectal, not proper, and more frequent in speech than in writing, though Merriam-Webster informs us that might could is still flourishing in the southern states. Not among the southern speakers and writers I know, unless it's in fun.

The double genetive or possessive causes more confusion. According to an article by Calvin Trillin in a recent issue of The New Yorker, the artist James Edmunds is a longtime friend of Trillin's. Some excellent writers prefer that James Edmunds be a longtime friend of Trillin. Would these writers agree that James Edmunds is a longtime friend of him? Of her? Of them? Of me? I feel sure they would write of his, of hers, of theirs, of mine.

This double construction has been idiomatic since the time of Chaucer. But those 18th century grammarians were not so sure it should stand. It was not until the latter half of the century that they succumbed to the use of both the prepositional phrase and the genetive in certain instances.

Merriam-Webster presents the best explanation I have found of the difference between the two usages, in a sentence about a picture of Jane or Jane's. If the picture is a picture of Jane, then Jane is the object of the preposition, and no doubt about it. But if the picture pertains to another subject and Jane merely owns it, then Jane's is essential to the meaning.

This distinction remains a problem even for writers of stature. But usage problems of a far simpler nature continue to be foreign to a number of American high-school and college graduates, and the new practice of turning our universities into vocational schools will do nothing to improve the quality of students admitted to or being graduated from higher institutions of learning.

With this controversial thought in mind, let me quote the two-time Grammy Award winner, Ruben Blade, whose comment appeared in an AP article recently on what television will have to offer by the turn of the century: "I think we risk becoming the best-informed society that ever died of ignorance."