As life moves on, I find that certain matters change without your being aware. For example, I was raised to respect your elders. The problem is that as the years go by, there are fewer elders. I recognize that one of these days, I may run out of them. What do I do then? Actually, I don’t know so I decided to turn around and look behind me and see if any of my youngers were showing me respect. So far, I haven’t seen a lot! However, that may partially be traced to the fact that I have been checking with my golf groups. In these groups nobody gets any respect there – except possibly for one guy who hits them higher and further than anyone. The point is that youngers are hard to evaluate. Essentially it relates to which group of youngers you are viewing. Just in The Villages there are different groups of youngers who seemed to evolve based on how young they were when they were able to retire as well as how long ago they made that decision. The difference in the thought process among this strata of youngers is hard to discern.
I am undoubtedly going to have to find some other way of checking. If I find anything out, I will let everyone know as there are probably others of you out there who are facing the same need to know. However, I will let that go for the moment and look at another example of the changes that have occurred in my life. When I was young and took English, the teacher’s eyes would bug out and steam would come out of his/her ears, if you handed in a report that had a sentence in it that ended in a preposition. It was something that you dared not do – at least if you wanted an “A”. Today, I am not certain that many people know what a preposition is. They certainly have no problem in leaving them dangling at the end.
The latter could be a problem in The Villages as there are probably some elderly English teachers here whose eyes bug out and the steam rolls out of their ears when they hear someone do that. Therefore, everyone should be careful as no one would want a retired English teacher ending up at ER in one of the hospitals for a steam injury. This also applies to the sending of emails as a sentence ending with the dreaded preposition is even more damaging to some as it is visual. It also takes time to get rid of an offending email, therefore those of us who send out emails should make certain that we know the background of those with whom we communicate. OK, I admit that it often sounds more natural if a sentence does end in a preposition. I have been guilty myself in that regard. However, you must recall the point about respecting your elders. English teachers are elders too and should be given due respect – even if you have forgotten what they taught you.
I have a long memory so I cringe not only when the preposition deal is evident but also other issues like using “him or them” when it should be “his or their.” For example “it was him driving in the winning run that won the game” is incorrect. It should be “his driving . . .”. His is a possessive word whereas him is not. The same is true with them and their. I lay this out even though I know most will not care at all.
However, I am an elder so I expect some respect!
Villager Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com