English Quickies

I think it's high time that we brush up on our "sounding smart" skills and have some quick English language lessons! If you thought I was referring to something else, well, this is not that kind of blog, perv.

Volume I: Learn the god damn difference between past tense and present perfect tense.

It's "I saw it" ...OR... "I have seen it".
It's "I went" ...OR... "I would have gone".

Next person that I hear saying that they "would have went" or they "seen it yesterday" is getting smothered with a pillow. Get your life together.


Volume II: Double negatives ain't no good.

See what I did there? Wait, no... because if you need this English lesson, you probably didn't. Stop saying "ain't no", "isn't no", "aren't no"... it's one or the other, not both. While I would strongly prefer that you just say something "isn't good" (because saying either "it ain't good" or "it's no good" is still going to make you sound like a hillbilly), I'm going to choose my battles here and just consider it a victory if you can properly deploy a single negative.


Volume III: Third person singular vs. Third person plural verb agreement

Earlier this week, I overheard someone say "The pharmacy don't open til 11." If only my eyes were actually able to shoot lasers into that person's poor, lost soul. Try replacing the subject with "it/he/she" or "they". You wouldn't use "they", because pharmacy is singular. So are words like family and team. Just because a pharmacy, a family, or a team is made up of multiple things, it's still a single unit. ERGO:

- the baseball team DOESN'T have a game today,
- the family IS clinically insane,
AND
- the pharmacy sure as fuck DOESN'T open until 11.

Word? Word.