When I was first learning a foreign language, my instructor said that the only way to really get to know a culture was through its language. Today I wonder how foreigners learn American English. We Americans are the little lambs that have lost our way by drifting into the hell of *The Garden of Earthly Delights, where we have languished too long.

Stylish doesn’t mean it’s not cool
Not all of us can be Pulitzer people nor do we have to be. But we can try to write with style instead of continuing to corrupt our native language. Sometimes I think we do it to be cool. But has cool become another cliché of disrespect? When we don’t have respect for our written and spoken language, it affects our body language, the way we dress, and how the world sees us as a people.

For example, when did that little preposition “of” disappear from the American vocabulary?

• A radio host told his audience that he would be on leave for “the next two weeks.”
• A Washington Post columnist recalled “the early days” of a press tour.
• Before leaving the party, “he had a couple of beers.”

The tiny word “of” is the difference between literate and, well, you know. Unless you’re deliberately writing dialect, which is extremely difficult, bastardizing the language works for people who use code, such as runners, spies, and a variety of Internet users. Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage is not exhausted; It’s not “so 90’s” to use proper English instead of sloppy.

These Slippery Jabberwocky Toads Are Redundant

• Close proximity: Siamese twins are so ubiquitous that I’m beginning to believe that our school system is fatally broken and no one, including the media, has reviewed Webster’s meaning. Arrest! Arrest! Arrest!
• High alert: our government constantly uses these two words. Alert means watchful, aware, vigilant. Does low alert mean half conscious? Either we are alert, or we are not alert and in big trouble.
• Help and be complicit also mean the same thing, as do many other English words that drive non-native speakers crazy.

Be faithful to your readers

You’ll recognize the following jargon and copycat clichés embedded like weeds in an editor’s garden of evil. By drawing attention to a few of them, before you hit the first computer key or pick up your pen and paper, you’ll start thinking about the myriad others, who have become lazy writing/speaking habits.

• At the end of the day – Yawning
• Mass exodus – Is there another type of exodus?
• Little exodus – what to say?
• Bored to tears – Huh?
• In broad daylight – how wide is that?
• At dawn – All I hear are roosters.
• Clear as mud – Ouch!
• Beat the bush -Um, 16th century Old English?
• The four corners of the earth – So is it really flat?
• Think outside the box: I’m drowning.
• Point of no return – Remake of a remake of a remake… of a…

write outside the lines

For those who write fiction or lyrics, the following is an example of a talented artist who can put together sentences without the same clichés, sloppy grammar, and tired phrases:

• “I am not written, I cannot read my mind, I am undefined. I am just beginning, the pen is in my hand, and I end without planning.” These are the initial letters of by Natasha Bedingfield song, “Unwritten”. Later she writes: “I break tradition, sometimes my attempts are outside the lines.” …… “Today is where your book begins. The rest is yet to be written.”

Bedingfield’s lyrics are prose poetry, like Bruce Springfield’s, like Billy Joel’s. Instinctively, we respond to it. They involve the language of our culture in its purest form, instead of the latest catchphrases repeated ad nauseam.

There is no business like your business
French can still be considered the language of diplomacy. Aim English is the language of business..

For entrepreneurs following the rebounding DOW, there are many ways to make your business profitable. I wish I knew some of them. This is what I know. You must be able to write a convincing letter using English grammar and never be guilty of the seven deadly sins.

The seven capital sins

they-are-there
The producers are in their weekly board meeting.
The writers had to leave their strike signs on the door. They are angry that they are not there for the vote.

loose-lose
The Giants will lose the Super Bowl.
Brady has been on the loose for a week.

affection effect
“Lighting affects everything the light falls on. How you see what you see; how you feel about it; how you hear what you’re hearing. Replace the ‘a’ with an ‘e’ and you’ll get lighting effects!”
The hurricane will not affect your departure.
We will be making several changes to the curriculum.

You are you
Your rights are about to be questioned.
You’re right about the new rules.

different from-different from
This sign is different from the one on the front door.
This sign is better than the one on the front door.

put-lie
I got dizzy and had to lie down. He, she, they had to go to bed.
Leave those books there.
Spread the blanket on the bed.

Would have. In spoken American English, “of” is often used incorrectly in place of “have.”
Never use would of, could of, should of in writing.
I could have installed the modem myself.
I would have sent you an invite, but you were out of town.

Get to the point, period, period, period
Journalist grammarian James J. Kilpatrick wrote an entire column on point.

“Nothing benefits a prize as much as ending it early.”

We know when a sentence is too long. Spraying a group of commas doesn’t lessen their breeze either. The key is not to fall in love with our words. She cuts through the dross and gets to the point. In a query letter to an editor, in a business letter, our words are often all we have to introduce ourselves and what we’re selling. When all else fails, let clarity be your mark.

** Hieronymus Bosco
Obviously, there are a million common sins and mistakes that writers make on a daily basis, but we don’t want to stay in this garden for too long. The 16th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch painted “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” depicting man’s fall into hell. The macabre oil painting is on display at the Prado Museum in Madrid along with the artist’s tabletop painting “The Seven Deadly Sins and the Last Four Things.”