A Word Please
by June Casagrande

June Casagrande

The bank customer service representative on the phone tells me his name is Jeff. I don't believe him, mostly because he has so much trouble pronouncing it. But I let it slide.

I'm calling because of a letter I received from my bank - Jeff's employer -- a letter that tells me that an April 13 ATM deposit has been reversed due to an "empty envelope."

I explain this to Jeff, adding some new information I have gathered: "I contacted the company who wrote me the check and it turns out that the check has cleared," I tell him.

I had written "for deposit only to" and my account number on the back. So whichever bank cashed the check for someone else screwed up. And I'm thinking they should pay.

I arrive at the point of my phone call: "So, Jeff, what I want to know is: How can we find out whether it was your bank that cashed the check?"

I give him the name of the bank on which the check was drawn, the check number and the date it cleared.

To Jeff's credit, he does not begin by asking me to give him my account number, which I had already keyed into the phone system. But from there things go downhill.

There's a moment of silence, then: "OK, yes, it says here that a deposit in that amount was made on April 13."

I say nothing. Jeff eventually chimes back in. "Oh, OK. Now I see. Yes, that credit was reversed on April 16."

"Yes …" I say, "so …"

After another pause, then Jeff seems to have an epiphany. "Ah, OK. Yes. It says here that the envelope was empty."

There's a tone of finality in Jeff's voice, and clear satisfaction. It's obvious he believes that he has successfully done his job - that job being to tell me exactly what I had already told him and, of course, to ignore my actual question entirely.

I know a lot of people who are deeply concerned about the state of grammar in our country. I envy them. Don't get me wrong, I care about grammar. But when I listen to people complain about the alarming decline of grammar knowledge in the English speaking world, I can't help but think of lots of other skills that are in even more alarming decline. Like basic communication skills. Listening, for example.

This is why I don't take up arms with all the people outraged at the gradual disappearance of the word "whom." I shrug off others' frustration at now widely accepted use of "healthy" to mean "healthful" and writers' liberal use of incomplete sentences. And anyone who honestly expects people to walk around saying stuff like "John is taller than I" instead of "than me" can count me right out of their crusade.

We have to pick our battles. And with grammar, trying to impose stuffy and pedantic little rules on people is just a bad idea. If there's any hope for the cause of good grammar, it depends on us getting our priorities straight.

Grammar crusaders should stop lamenting the fact that kids don't use "whom" in casual conversation and instead focus on the fact that neither those kids nor many of the self-appointed grammar crusaders themselves can correctly identify all the adverbs in the following sentence: "Therefore, I will happily terminate Jeff tomorrow." (They are "therefore," "happily" and "tomorrow.")

Of course, ranting about customer service reps' communication skills can also waste valuable energy and page space, which is why I must point you to http://grammar.uoregon.edu for a more complete explanation of adverbs. Still, thanks for listening.

June Casagrande is author of "Mortal Syntax" and "Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies." She can be reached at word@grammarsnobs. com.