Windows is Shutting Down
Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.
Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.
The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.
Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.
Commentary
Clive James is an illustrious expatriate Australian poet and author living in London. The title (and opening phrase) of his poem will be familiar to everyone reading these words. I’ve read them often enough myself, but it has taken James’s wit to point out how they should have grated painfully on my grammatical ear. It is a marvellously chosen example to illustrate his claim about declining grammatical standards, since digital technology has been such a powerful force for generating mangled syntax. There are many fine essays on the decline of the English language: George Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language’ remains one of the best. This poem is a companion piece to James’s own lament on the subject. The poem states James’s argument more succinctly than the delightful accompanying essay, ‘The Continuing Insult to the Language’, both of which are published in ‘The Monthly’, June 2006.
— William Grey
Links
Clive James: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_James
Orwell’s essay: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Chellappa Mallika (Mallika) · 14 June 2006
But surely we can make allowances for the fact that the complete sentence is
“The Windows Operating System is shuting down”? The poem is funny, but it has surely picked the wrong target.
Other examples:
“Did you know that the Florida Everglades <> was once a vibrant, free-flowing river of grass that provided clean water from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay? Today, this extraordinary ecosystem is dying.” <ecosystem>
Mallika
Emlen Smith · 14 June 2006
Humph. James’ poem is clever, but his grammatical complaint is utterly misguided. “Windows,” in the context implied, is the name of a (singular) computer program (or operating system, or whatever it is), and is quite properly treated as singular itself, in spite of its misleading similarity to a plural noun. If we apply James’ system generally, we end up saying things like “Romeo and Juliet are a great play, but The Trojan Women are even better,” and “There go Four-eyes; he’s called that because he wears glasses.” I like language- curmudgeonism as much as the next guy, but it has to be done right.