Just some thoughts around Editor Jon May’s column on the English language (DJ 10/10/2025). If you have at least more than just a sketchy knowledge of at least a couple of foreign languages, you’ll know that English is relatively simple in structure. There isn’t much grammar to worry about, although even reputable TV personalities often make grave mistakes when they speak. It is quite common to hear them, and others mix subjective (I am doing something) and objective (something is being done to me). It almost hurts my ears when I hear something like “Me and my wife went to the movies”, or “Come and visit my wife and I”, where I and me are mixed up.
In the High School I went through in my native Norway, we had 3 foreign languages even in the science line, besides heavy emphasis on math and science, like astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry and zoology. What a contrast to the US, where HS is no preparation for higher studies at all, – just something to fill the time gap between grade and graduate schools, or just a time filler between childhood and adulthood.
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