English "Faux Pas" (false steps, blunders, indiscretions)

I have become increasingly aware of and irritated by the trend of "inference". For centuries, English students were taught to use the English language to accurately convey their thoughts, lessons, and requests. I am frustrated by the relatively new attitudes, being currently faced with accusations of being passive-aggressive on a regular basis from my college-student grandchild. Everything I say is twisted and over-analyzed to become something entirely different from what I said and meant. Inference has run amok.

The one thing I appreciated about our language was the ability to convey exactly what you meant. There was a reason and purpose for diagramming sentences. It was a pain to do when sentences were very complex, but the important thing learned was that there was a system, a plan, a law if you will. I appreciated the order, the lack of chaos. (Willynilly bothers me.) One thing was emphasized as very important: Never infer. Yes, we were taught to NEVER INFER, for you will most likely be misunderstood. Well, now our current young folk are drowning in that very problem, and they don't even know it!

The popular label is now passive-aggressive. Years ago, I took both a college English Placement exam (1997) and the USPS pre-employment test for English and Math skills (1989). (I got very high scores.) Both exams erroneously had sections weighted heavily on inference, the whole purpose of a major part of the testing. Can you correctly assume what the writer meant but didn't say? Of course not! Nobody can! That's the whole purpose for taking English classes and learning grammar and composition, learning how to clearly convey our thoughts.

Reality check: If someone puts the city of Eureka on an envelope, can you correctly assume which state without a zip code being given? With "no" not being a choice and the majority of our states having a town named Eureka, happy guessing!

Passive-aggressive has gone from being a simple grammatical term regarding sentence structure and verb tense to an offensive behavior. Okay, I realize when that started. The trend was back in the seventies, still the hippie era, when "peace", "free love", sit-ins, boycots, riots and bra-burning were making big news. Drug abuse was rampant, as were drug-related deaths. Do we really want to embrace a philosophy from that forum? I didn't and still don't. But it really took hold in the 1990s via teleseminars and televideos that promoted unproven business and societal ideas that everyone followed like mindless sheep.

Don't get me wrong. English has never been perfect and is flexible. I have always felt the American English language needed modifications, but I saw spelling as the problem. I wanted to drop the annoying and confusing "ough" and "eigh" spellings, and fix some confusing spellings like "wind" (air's breezy movement or something's screw-like turning action?). It would be easy to do.

Of course, there were also over-used and unnecessary foreign words added to our usage that were difficult and annoying: "rendezvous" and "hors d'oeuvres". Oo-la-la, tres chic! I took French for 3 years, so I'm fine with the language -- but I don't toss it into my writing as others frequently do (without quotes or definitions). That is not the issue. It's not about the influence of other languages on ours. That's a given, especially in a nation founded by Brits, with a mix of Europeans settling here.

Hey, now, don't think for a moment that English is not the USA's national language. That is obvious and not to be challenged. The Constitution, laws, well, everything is in English. We courteously give translation aids for our Spanish and French speaking neighbors of Mexico and Canada. 75% of my great-grandparents didn't speak English when they landed at Castle Garden in New York. They had to learn it, fast. We are a uni-lingual nation with citizens and visitors with multi-lingual abilities to whom we have begun to coddle and cater. Is no one in charge? (Besides the self-proclaimed knowitalls?)

We still have a lingual weak link. We need stable, learned, qualified, authorized leadership who can be removed if they fail. Must we continue to leave it up to biased textbook publishers with political agendas and numerous opinionated dictionary publishers? In the infant years of our nation, before there were spelling rules, who set up our spelling system to be determinedly different from the British when we declared our independence? I was taught that it was a very deliberate action, similar to the Brits refusing to drive on the right side of the road because we do. A little hostility there for each side in both decisions?