Sorry Sham. Verb "lay" is transitive. Verb "lie" is intransitive. Ignorance is no defence. Likewise TV and newpapers and degrees are all dumbed down, hugely. I'm an ageing hippy, and will tolerate much - but toleration does not make right what is wrong.

I could make a judgement that heavy rain and gales were wrong - but in practical terms this judgement would do nothing to prevent me getting wet and blown around - would it?

My daughter went to school in Shetland. She was taught English but this was not the spoken language of her classmates. Shetland dialect is based on English but has elements of many languages. Her generation was luckier than earlier ones who were banned from speaking in their natural dialect at school. For all the best reasons - it was thought that they would be unemployable if they did not have English imposed on them. As always in such matters, there was also an element of snobbery involved.

So what results are confused children who can read and write English quite well and who are educated to a high standard but who were inhibited in conversations (other than in dialect) and my daughter was a good example. If you were to try and stick to your rules of grammar as being RIGHT– you would be correcting just about everything my daughter and her school-friends would say, as being WRONG. Which would only result in inhibiting them further.

They would not be ignorant or need a defence.

As it is with most things – the old certainties tend to fall down on the borderline cases. But it is probably there that these rules should be judged.   

The following is a poem in Shetland dialect for an example. It sounds better than it reads but this is the case with all written language. For this and the rules than govern it are not the living spoken language itself but just a means and convention of recording it. You may be safe to judge this convention as being WRONG but never to judge the people who speak the way they choose to – as WRONG just because this does not conform with your concept of what is RIGHT.


Eels II
Da Lammas spates, lack flyooget aets
Abön a flakki laavin,
Fell frae da lift wi a heavy drift,
Da sarn as an hit'd been kaavin.

Da burns aa rase abön da braes
Fir stanks an stripes wir tömed in,
Till every lyoag whaar an eel could oag
A neesik micht a swömed in.

Da hedderkowes apo da knowes
Lay drooket an disjasket,
Da tatti shaas an bulwand taas
Wir wuppled laek a gasket.

Da grittest faels wir taen laek spaels
An hurled ta da ocean -
O, whaar could wirmi eels fin rest
Wi siccan a dire commotion.

An dis sam gref, da dead soo's bef,
Brook oot at da nedder nyook,
An ran lack a pipe till dey wir no a sipe
At could a covered a fluke.

And aa da eels cam, head-ower-heels,
Oot wi da force o watter -
A foon fan hadds among da clods,
An brugs an moory gutter.

An doon, doon, doon, grey, green, an broon,
Dey wirmed an dey wumbled,
Some smaa an lang laek a styilk o tang
An some laek a baa gyaan heddikraa
Till i da sea dey bumbled.

JAMES STOUT ANGUS
(1830 - 1923)