LEND ME YOUR EAR: ONE ANSWER TO QUESTION OF UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

First, an explanation of the mixed metaphor perpetrated last time around. My reference to the horse latitudes of educationese, a friendly reader reminded me, was out of sync with a protest against "kids."

True, but it was O.J. Simpson's fault. I had just abandoned my desk for a breather, and caught the Not Guilty verdict over radio.

"And I am the Queen of Horsemania!" I countered harshly, paraphrasing Dorothy Parker's famous line and adopting her spirit while composing.

In the same instant, I realized horses have colts, not kids. What could I do to save my face but return to the typewriter and make up a rule? After all, that was how the judges got O.J. off the hook.

Forget O.J. and the mixed metaphor. Time to concentrate on today's strange offerings. We begin with Jack Stapleton's recent tongue-in-cheek column on Bill Emerson's efforts to enact a law making American English our official language. Stapleton pointed out that such a law would be useless because of the number of languages spoken in the Missouri Bootheel alone.

The columnist was laughing "with," not "at" the accents and scrambled usage pervading Swampeast Missouri, and I am with Stapleton all the way. To me, lack of proper training is far less offensive than the misuses committed by the presumably educated.

By now, alert readers and TV addicts must know of the ongoing storm created by our British kinsmen over Oxford University's refusal to admit American students who have already paid the required entrance fees. The reason for this reversal of policy? The students had failed to master prepositions!

These students, the Oxford professors maintained, received advance notice that Oxford University was "in" Oxford, that they would be going "to" Oxford "at" Oxford, and the hopefuls had failed to note the distinctions.

As long-time readers know, prepositions are my long suit. Readers can also verify that I never demean school children whatever their standing, though I bear down on know-it-all professors. Moreover, British educators, ever critical of American education, committed a sin against singulars and plurals while boasting of the superiority of their own.

These high-and-mighty potentates explained that "a student who had paid their entrance fee and lost their money was suing Oxford for ruining their lifelong plans." Worse still, the instigators appeared to be jolly proud of what they had done to this student.

Never mind that I have always been an anglophile. Even so, if these British "educrats" must be all that picky (thank you, Peter Kinder, for "educrats"), we can beat them at their own game. Not even the King's English is exemplary, and for some years Prince Charles has decried the decline of proper usage throughout the kingdom.

This may be applied to British broadcasters as well. BBC recently presented an awards ceremony for American robber-baron Jesse James, and the announcer bragged the occasion was "in honor of" James. As any word-conscious mortal should know, the occasion was held "in recognition of," though to be fair, our American cohorts are also fond of glorifying robbers and killers. Why this should be, only God knows and His files are not open to us.

Admittedly, the misuse of terminology is as rampant among our own broadcasters. One radio staffer tells us that Margaret Thatcher may be coming to our fair little city soon, but it depends on her "erotic" schedule. Even schedules have turned erotic!

The correct word, as most of us realize, is "erratic," though British gossip has it that their former prime minister is prone to stray along that other road as well. This gives her something in common with the Royal Family regardless of the still-existing divisions between dynasty and serfdom.

Flawed morality, however, is not our province unless it relates to the English language. And we could go on forever about the flawed language of English-speaking peoples the world over without a glimmer of hope for the answer to a universal language.

The answer came from a recent issue of a weekly insert in the Southeast Missourian. In the October number of The Mini-Page, we read that the only language -- the only sound -- every living being on our planet will ever be able to respond to is -- an echo!

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