Okay--nobody wants to be caught while reporting gross transgressions to the Language Police--not that somebody shouldn't report.

But the English language is being butchered these days by movie stars and other persons in the national spotlight who believe that they're being oh-so-cool while failing basic English grammar--you know: the stuff that we studied in 7th to 9th grades in high school. Or should have studied. . . .

Their egregious behavior won't affect you if you know what's grammatically correct; but anyone in your company who is insecure with grammar will be challenged whenever writing a letter or e-mail for outside delivery. That letter shouldn't reflect shame on the company. At that point--and preferably a little in advance--HR needs to become involved.

Rationales: The Wannabees are starting to say, 'between she and I' and 'for she and I to use,' and 'they gave it to she and I.' The pretenders want to call their ignorance of the language "very correct grammar." It ain't correct according to what we learned in school! It's only more of Hollywood's pretence.

Don't we all (correctly) say, 'between us,' not, in phony-speak, 'between we ourselves' or 'between she and I?' How disconnected from reality need a person be in order to goof that simple conversion? If 'for her' and 'for me,' and "for them,'then why not 'for her and me and them?' If berating him and her and me, why phony it with 'berating he and she or I?' Because the pretenders just don't know what they don't know. That defines ignorance.

There are other common errors in grammar which we Americans understand because spoken communication and literature require different mental sets. But 'she said she went' should be 'she said THAT she went' because grammar teaches that subordinate clauses need to be identified; and also that proper sentences do not contain two subjects.

For instance: 'may & might,' 'may & can' and 'if & whether,' or 'myself' as a noun.
--'May' is permissive, but might is conditional: "You may include me in the party that you might be planning." or "You may (permissive) go to the movies if you can (transportation & money, etc)."

--Some dictionaries define 'might' as the past tense of 'may'." But in that case, the tenses and auxiliary verbs are different: "Mother had said that we might (permissive) go, but it rained; so we might (conditional) go tomorrow." Most people need to work especially hard in order to confuse those two uses.

--'If' is conditional, and 'whether' implies 'or not'--a simple yes/no.

"We will have a picnic if the weather is good." Or, "We will go to the ball game whether or not the weather is good." Most likely to confuse is the "Tell me if you can come--or do it--or help me." Which implies "But don't tell me if you can't come." Because a decline or refusal up-front can be helpful to alternate planning, you'll only hope that the hearer/ recipient responds in either case. So, "Tell me whether you can come."

--Pretenders: "She and myself did it." No. She and I (myself) did it." 'Myself, herself, himself, and themselves' are only reflexives, not nouns. Would you say, "Himself went to bed?" Well, the Irish might say it when imitating the Irish brogue, because that lends a facetious importance to him. But they rarely write it.

Important consideration: Our native-language brains identify the intent of the language easily, even if it's mangled. But the specificity is lost. The limited-language folks among the foreign-born can't find the language markers that they learned in school (probably better than we did)--and so they get lost. ESL (English as a Second Language) is a different but related problem . . . although it might be your company's problem right now.

A key marker for the ESL contingent is the word 'that,' which introduces subordinate clauses. We native-borns rarely use 'that' when speaking or writing; whereas the foreign-born who study traditional ESL learn literary grammar and so depend on the marker to guide them. Native-borns say, "She said she went to the store." But the ESL folks learn, "She said (that) she went to the store" and also that a proper sentence does not contain two subjects and two verbs. Whose fault is it that we need Language Police?

Part of the language problem is the faulted person's own--some people just won't learn, and so they'll gladly imitate the movie stars. The other part of the problem is that the school systems of the nation persist in using outmoded and already failing 'sound-out' methodology to teach reading to both native children and foreign adults. If sound-out has lasted almost 100 years, why should it be changed? Research and computer counts that were already published ('Science' Journal, March 16, 2001; E. Paulesu and also L. Helmuth) underscore the need to jettison sound-out for ESL, at least, but preferably for all English learners, native and foreign.

Schoolroom sound-out is marginal at best and failing regularly among great percentages of the limited-language folks because it's ineffectively based on rules-with-exceptions-to-exceptions and then applies inadequate rules to the 1,100 ways to pronounce the 40 key sounds of American-English. That's probably why the phony crowd hold such sway--one can imitate an acceptable model confidently, without thinking first.

Given today's schoolroom realities, your company must at least consider the need to offer improved brush-up English to the even some native speakers. (Brush-up itself is alredy standard in many companies, along with basic arithmetic.)

Your company might also tutor ESL for the foreign-born employees and other speakers of non-standard English who have regular contact with mainstream- language customers.

If you want to score points in community relations, why not also offer ESL courses to foreign-born employees' families and/or in neighborhoods surrounding your company's plants and other facilities? That's do-able. A brief (but proved), verbatim course exists. That's another article.

Worse, the poor-English virus is corrupting even the professionals in the press, both written and spoken. Even some reporters are being blinded by the movie stars in their eyes. Press editorial staff usually, but not always, catches the blunders.

However, one error consistently escapes even editorial eyes: the dis-use of the required (by grammar) possessive before a gerund, as in, "He objected to me going to the movies." He doesn't really object to 'me'. . . he objects to 'my going'--big difference. That possessive form is mangled in probably most circumstances of general conversation and writing.

To the question, "Who's there?", about 79.3% (unscientific guess) of native-born Americans would answer, "It's me," whereas a grammarian must answer, "It's I." That's precisely imprecise . . . or imprecisely precise--pick one.

Despite this article, even this language activist wouldn't try to reform the nation on that one; it's hopeless already. The other 20% of our population are admittedly language-handicapped and can be forgiven for whatever answers that they give and mistakes that they make. . .as long as they are able to make their errors while speaking the English language--even poorly. Single-language is one of the key strengths of our developing nation and culture (such as it is)--posited by the Continental Congress: English only, not German, and not bilingual.

Of course we should have consideration for invited immigrants--but they chose to leave their own country behind. The Balkans have failed--we shouldn't try to bring that failure here by becoming unwilling polyglots. We simply need protection from general stupidity and imprecision of meaning that are caused by the insecure employee's tagging along with the pretentious movie stars and assorted phoneys.

Yes, corruption and deterioration seem to be normal in any language. Under General Charles deGaulle, several decades ago, the French unleashed his Language Police on their language and so purged 'le weekend' and other impurities out of their language. Sure, 'weekend' is shorter than 'le fin de la semaine' ('the end of the week'), but pure is pure, DeGaulle felt. 'Le Parking' yielded to 'Estationement," which word (you can guess) relates to our "stationary." Which is what 'parking' means ; but our is shorter and faster to say. It's simply that the French language arrived long before the cars and five-day week.

The key issue in France was that the language was being restored to its rightful place during a low point in French prestige. Politics, you know, and its 'substitutive satisfiers' (Mehmet Bequiraj). The only true beneficiaries of deteriorated language anywhere are the publishers of dictionaries and other word books that make money by creating new editions to sell every time things get so bad that we don't know what the newest wave of decay will signal or mean. No, this doesn't mean that we should rail against 'microwave' or 'rocket science' or other needed new terms that are not already found in the bible or Constitution. Otherwise we'll be repeating the 'le fin de la semaine' complex in English.

In the last analysis, Italian is a corruption of Latin; but many Italians can't speak Italian grammatically today--if that were possible, I'm told by an Italian friend, a double-PhD. Silly, conflicting rules--just like some in English. Ditto with the other Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian; including English to some extent). All are bastardized cousins of the Latin original. Without challenge, there's no bottom.

The salient point: Phony is phony--and many of your company's clients and other associates will know the difference . . .and possibly score your company down, without telling you. At what point do you suppose that HR should step in and begin to police English usage? Probably nobody in the nation writes perfect English on every occasion--but we don't need or even expect perfection--only precision.

So either we protect English while yet we can, or we will get to a point where nothing in writing means anything consistent to all readers because the writers aren't sure of what they mean, apart from what they say--or think they've said. Then the boiler-plate lawyers will be in charge of everything. Non-specific writing and speaking ("You know what I mean?) is easy but is also easily misinterpreted. Enter reactions from simple irritation to simpleton lawyers and complex lawsuits. When grammatical errors are in writing, the errors can often be enforced by law. That can become an expensive proposition. Do you need a better reason to act while you still can?

Language classes for everyone? Not likely. How popular would that be? How effective, when most people might begin by turning off because they already know it all?

Why not simply send an e-mail message to everyone who writes letters or sends e-mail to outside addresses? (Skip the janitors and stockroom clerks.)

For starters: "A number of grammatical errors in letters and e-mails recently have made our company seem to be under-educated. Of course we hope and believe that such is not true. So let's prove that it's not true! Here's a list of the most common and offensive grammar goofs.(Append a list, much as given above.) Keep the list handy--it's useful and will help to make us look good!"

Then provide a brief but intelligent cheat sheet for permanent reference, not schoolroom memorization. Some lines and examples as simple as the several in the opening and argumentation paragraphs will do. The examples should reflect the type of real-life situations that the majority of your employees might be writing about.

No one will get any blame, but the company's interest in upgrading can be established easily. Rollo May's Hawthorne Effect, again: Employees tend to cooperate with what they understand to be the company's objectives. Most don't need to be coddled or entertained--just treated like adults who work more effectively and efficiently when they understand the end point.

By the way, don't ignore a few proscriptions, like 'lol' and 'u said 2 me' and other of the younger generation's aberrations that sound cute to them but disturb the older folks on both sides of the business communication. These cutesie uses probably rank way up there with tattoos as a business-desirability indicator. It matters because most corporate decisions are not made by executives and directors who hold their positions because of their hip-hop quotient. And you know, man, like, they might not be, like, glad to buy from cutesie companies, you know what I mean?

Tricky writing quandaries that call for precise answers can be referred to language-style books for prose, which style books should be easy to locate in your company library. The Associated Press or NY 'Times' style books are accepted standards. Nobody will argue with those books' decisions, even if an employee occasionally disagrees with a specific entry.

Again, an occasional error is to be expected and probably ignored . . . but what if imprecision provokes a legal dispute over a misprint or misstatement that conveys the wrong phrase or generates an unintended interpretation? But by now, I hope you get my point: correcting me-too errors that are made in imitation of the movie stars and pretenders might be harmless but could also be harmful and expensive.

A sheet of prevention is worth a ream of "Damns!" So don't let yourself be short-sheeted by the pretenders!