by Eva van Loon

Are you speaking Englese or English?

Listen to yourself for a few sentences. Notice how often the words my, your, his, her, its, our, and their pop up. Every sentence? Every common noun? You’re speaking Englese.

If we could wear out words as we do cars, Englese speakers would have driven all the possessive pronouns into the ground by now. Consider these examples (Standard English equivalents provided in brackets):

You’ve got your lame ducks, your dead ducks, and your fuddleducks.
(There are lame ducks, dead ducks, and fuddleducks.)

We offer our every client their solution tailored to their problem.
(We offer every client a solution tailored to the problem.)

Notice that in each case, the switch from Englese to English is easily made either (1) by skipping the pesky possessive altogether or (2) by putting an article there, instead. Since English has only three articles (the, a, an), that’s an easy choice.

All but the first of the Englese sentences use a construction that has developed in just a couple of decades. The Grammar Gremlin is joggling my arm to remind me that, in Standard English, that new construction is wrong, wrong, wrong! Can you spot the problem?

Almost all of us use this Englese.construction. I’ve heard it in films set in a time when no one would have used it (fire the Continuity person!) and even caught even the Grammar Gremlin, who would defend Standard English to the death, slipping into it aloud. However, I’m going to make you, dear Reader, wait until next issue for the answer. A single column hasn’t room to entertain a social theory about how this change in language use came about so quickly.

What drives this compulsion to attach every common noun to ownership by somebody? Grammar Gremlin, who dabbles in social theory, suggests the illness is a natural outcome of a highly materialist society. It’s not the Earth but our Earth, not the future but our future. We own everything. Standard English prefers a stance above all that possessiveness, a more neutral tone—ironic, when one considers that English came from England, which once boasted more colonial “possessions” than any other country.

Suffice it to say that, 90% of the time, when you feel those traitorous words their or your coming through your throat, you can successfully switch to perfect Standard English by dropping the possessive or using an/a/the article. And bingo! You’re cured of Possessive-Compulsive Disorder (and made the Grammar Gremlin happy).