Today, I was going to write about Harvey, who has no last name, but that will have to wait.  He is not, by the way, the ‘pooka’ from the James Stewart movie, though there is a connection.  (To be continued…)

Instead, this time it’s about words, wayward ones.

The previous post’s first paragraph borrowed “thems” and “his’n” — in a fit of whimsy — sparking the briefest ‘comments’ exchange.  (Click)  Here is the followup of sorts.

In my former workplace, a media production unit on the campus of a large state university, there was a supervisor who wrangled the part-time student employees.  A lovely person and throughly professional, she had the unapologetic and slightly disconcerting habit of replacing saw/took/did with seen/taken/done.  (‘I seen that this morning.’  ‘I taken that this morning.’  ‘I done that this morning.’)

‘Unapologetic’ because it was so utterly consistent, ‘disconcerting’ because she would reasonably routinely have interaction with faculty, whom I would imagine were somewhat taken aback.  Or, maybe this is just a simple case of over-think.  I’ve never been accused of that before…

Whereas I am a self-confessed grammar nazi, I swear my having paid all this attention to this has nothing to do with being high and mighty.  After a while, I decided that in her mind seen/taken/done was just ‘alternate’, but every bit as correct.  I am unaware if anyone ever addressed this with her.

On that last point, when and if you ever notice something ‘nonconforming’, so to speak, about my own English usage, you might just want to back off…

I ain’t kidding.