The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #98054   Message #1936876
Posted By: Bee-dubya-ell
14-Jan-07 - 11:36 PM
Thread Name: Grammatically Correct Folk Song Lyrics
Subject: RE: Grammatically Correct Folk Song Lyrics
I don't believe most people who habitually use correct grammar in daily speech are going to be inclined toward singing songs with incorrect grammar. Most of us choose songs with which we have connections, and if a song is written in a grammatical style that is foreign to our daily way of speaking, we're probably not going to choose to sing it.

But, in reality, most of us don't use correct grammar all the time. I try to use it in writing (unless I'm intentionally writing in a "vernacular"), but don't confuse how I write with how I talk. My "vernacular" writing is much closer to the way I usually speak than is the style in which this post is written.

I'm perfectly comfortable singing songs in whatever grammatical style their authors chose to cast them, and I can't think of any reason why I would want to "clean up" the grammar in a song.