LEND ME YOUR EAR: BACKTRACKING REQUIRED BEFORE MOVING FORWARD

Repercussions from readers include sins of omission on my part. Helen Wollan of West Lafayette, Ind., in her response to the columns on "sit/set," informed me that she frequently hears "sat" used for the past tense of "set." For instance, a woman of education may say she "sat" her child in a toy store while she shopped for groceries.

The misuse of "sat" for "set" is probably not limited to the Hoosier State. For all we know, mule devotees living in our now official Mule State may have "sat" their offspring on these hybrids for centuries. What we do know is that mules are alleged to be a stubborn breed.

Someone familiar to readers has been considered "stubborn as a mule" and "sot in her ways" most of her life. Gentle readers, please accept this apology for her failure to include "sot" as well as her omission of an example suggested by her lifelong friend Helen Wollan.

Another reader, one who prefers to remain anonymous, recently heard a commentator declare, during a docudrama of World War II, that it was the Japanese who "attackted" us first. I once devoted a whole column to this solecism. The present tense of the verb "attack" is still "attack" -- one syllable -- and the past and perfect forms remain "attacked" -- also one syllable.

In earlier columns, I have demonstrated that "either" and "neither" are construed as singular whether referring to one person or thing, or a group. On 60 Minutes a little while back, a guest was heard to state that "neither Griffin nor his most vehement critic are aware of this discrepancy." What that discrepancy entailed eluded me completely. My attention was riveted on the plural verb, and as everyone knows, Griffin is booked on a myriad of charges.

In an article defining Southeast Missouri State University's upcoming foreign study program, the author announced that students who join the group for a tour of Europe will earn three college credits "in either International Marketing, International Management, International Business, or Transcultural Experience." The use of "either" was not only incorrect, it was unnecessary.

In the same write-up, the coordinator of the program used "different to" for "different from." Some months ago, I pointed out that "different to" is common in Britain, though illogical to thinking Americans. The coordinator, however, of German heritage, expressed close ties with England, and for that he has our blessing.

My closer friend Esther Riechmann, of Jacksonville, Fla., has relayed one of George Will's columns which I had just clipped from this newspaper and sent to James Kilpatrick to chew over or eschew. George Will, highly regarded exemplar of the written word, had compared the crowds drawn to baseball in America with those favoring football. Of the city of Milwaukee, Will had written: "...the home of he who is smilingly known as the commissioner of what is anachronistically called the national pastime."

In this construction, "he" is clearly the object of the preposition "of," not the subject of the "who" clause that defines the people's attitude. Will, however, who has long lamented the decline of language skills among our schoolchildren, was likely suffering deadline-phobia or a rotten cold and had no time or ear for reading his production aloud. His excellent column of June 5, "Why can't Johnny write? Because literacy not taught" -- a spin-off from Rudolph Flesch's 1955 WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ -- renders his brief fall from grace of little moment.

A long-time reader with an eye and ear for catching mistakes has requested a repetition of earlier distinctions between "anxious" and "eager." In short, "anxious" means concerned, even fearful, of something imminent if also threatening. To be eager is to anticipate a happy or at least satisfactory resolution to something imminent. This is not to say we cannot be both anxious and eager at the same time.

Kind and faithful readers, never tell this grammar buff you are anxious to see her next column. Rather, pretend to be eager if only to confirm she is still "sot in her ways" with the highways and byways of the English language.

~Aileen Lorberg is a language columnist for the Southeast Missourian.