Use correct grammar

A quarterly report from the 1960 Freshman Year, Notre Dame, is just spot-on. The first sentence says it all. "The child's first teacher is the parent, his first school is the home." My parents never used improper grammar. Double negatives and slang such as "ain't" were not used and not allowed. Our grandmother was a stickler for proper grammar. We would ask: Where's it at? She would say: "It's behind the at! You should say Where is it?" Our grandfather was born and raised in Norway and always spoke with a strong accent. He immigrated not knowing a single word of English. I guess grandmother kept him on the right track.

Hollyweird produces commercials that blatantly use improper grammar. "I could've ran a copy for you." They do it with kid commercials which says misuse of the word is condoned and proper.

I see improper diction all over the place: commercials, commentators, news people, etc. The word effective is pronounced as ahffective; official is pronounced as ahfficial; imagine is pronounced as ahmagine, etc. To me, it just ruins an otherwise professional presentation.

Our language today is quite different from 200 years ago. Twenty-five years from now it will have evolved further.

Another irk: As words find their way into dictionaries they become proper. "Busted" is one such word. I see it in newspapers: "The windows were busted out."

It all starts at home. Schools don't try to correct students.

DAN PHELPS, Cape Girardeau