Checksheet: Deviation, Parallelism and Foregrounding

A. Note down each deviation and parallelism you can find in the text:

Deviation

(a) Is the deviation internal (deviates from some established pattern internal to
the text) or external (deviates from some norm external to the text)?
(b) If the deviation is external, what external norm does it deviate from (e.g. the
norms for English, the norms for the genre, the norms of the particular
author)?
(c) At what linguistic level does the deviation occur:

Phonetic Lexical
Graphological Discoursal
Metrical Semantic
Morphological Pragmatic
Syntactic Other

(d) Are there any other deviations occurring at the same place in the text (if so,
reapply (a)(c)). Note the extra foregrounding.

(e) Do the deviations lead to new, nonliteral meanings for the textparts
concerned? If so, what are they in each case?

Parallelism

(f) Are there any parallelisms? If so, note the linguistic levels at which they occur
by using the list of levels in (c) above (note that parallelism may occur at
more than one linguistic level at the same time).
(g) Does the parallelism rule (look for same or opposite meaning) apply? If so,
what is the meaningresult?

B. Examine cohesion and function of foregrounding

(h) How do the foregrounded portions of the text relate together and contribute to
the interpretation of the poem as a whole? Does looking at the whole pattern
help you in any way (i) to interpret particular deviations or parallelisms that
you could not satisfactorily explain before, or (ii) to reinterpret others?
(i) Note down any other points which occur to you.
2 Exploring the language of poems, plays and prose

What is Poetic License

When describing writing, you say people are taking poetic license when they use
language in a way that isn't normal or correct. I think of it as implying that you're
cutting them some slack (Oh, yeah, Bob took some poetic license with the lyrics),
but it's not an inherently positive term; it can also be used negatively (Wow, Bob
really took poetic license with that song).

Poetic License in Poetry

Poetic license is often granted to, obviously, poets, and many of the references I
found seemed to consider it to be a privilege granted to poets (1, 2)a freedom
that polite society allows poets so they can enlighten us and achieve certain
effects or work within the constraints of certain poetic forms such as rhymes or
meter.

For example, the book An Introduction to Poetry (2) notes that you might see a
poet using unusual word order or use auxiliary verbs such as "did" or "do" when
we normally wouldn't as in this line from "The Ancient Mariner":

They all the day did lie

Poets may put adjectives after nouns as in the line from the poem "Ode to
Evening":

Come nymph demure, with mantle blue (3)

They may sometimes use odd contractions such as "ne'er" for "never" and
shortened forms of words such as "'tween" for "between (1, 3)," and poets even
sometimes make up words as in Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem "Jabberwocky."

Poetic License in Songs

We understand poetic license in poetry, but you've probably also heard it used to
refer to song lyrics. Should we cut song writers the same grammatical slack we
cut poets?

We grammarians like to cringe at what we consider poorly written songs, and I

like to use songs with errors as examples because they're memorable, although
I've always said I don't expect songs to be grammatically perfect.

A 2004 article by the Chicago Sun-Times pop music critic Jim DeRogatis notes
that "The Greeks referred to singers and poets with the same word (4)." In that
same article Kenneth Clark, the director of the Poetry Center in Chicago, says "If
you go back 5,000 years, there is no difference. Like the psalms--they're set to
music and they're poems."

If Lewis Carroll can make up words for his famous and revered "Jabberwocky"
poem, should we be so quick to dismiss the made-up word "pompatus" in "The
Joker" by Steve Miller (5).
 Who is stylistics? 3

There's something different between "Jabberwocky" (Twas brillig, and the slithy
toves; Did gyre and gimble in the wabe) and "The Joker" (Some people call me
Maurice, 'Cause I speak of the pompatus of love), but would you take away
Miller's poetic license? I wouldn't.

On the other hand, I have a hard timea really hard timewith something like
"Buy You a Drank" by T-Pain.

Imma buy you a drank

Imma take you home with me
I got money in the bank

So he doesn't use "drink" because he needs "drank" to rhyme with "bank." Deep
in my heart I feel like that's a rhyme he should have just let go. But perhaps one
person's horror is another person's poetry. [Added 4/6/2014: I take back my
objection to "drank." It turns out that my objection just showed my cultural
ignorance. "Drank" is a real thing: It's both a slang term for a drug and the name
of a soda.]

I also have a hard time with Paul McCartney's "Ever changing world in which we
live in." What bothers me most is that it's unnecessary. Instead of "the world in
which we live in" he could have easily written "the world in which we're livin'." In
fact, I thought those were the lyrics until multiple people pointed out the error to
me.

Poetry has never been my strong point, so I won't pretend to have an answer for
you about musicians and where we should draw the line between poetic license
and errors. Some of you may think songs with grammatically incorrect phrases
such as "between you and I" are errors, and other people may chalk it up to
poetic license.

Here's your homework assignment for the week: ponder where you'd draw the
line between errors and poetic license in music, and then post a comment about
it below or on the Grammar Girl Facebook page.

Are you annoyed by song lyrics that do not obey the rules of grammar?
Do you correct them as you sing along? To mark the inclusion of English
Grammar Today on Cambridge Dictionaries Online, we thought wed
count down some of the worst offences against the rules of grammar
committed by songwriters, either deliberately, or without knowing.

5. The standard non-standard

Rocknroll has always been drawn to the rebellious side of life, so its
little surprise that a large number of songs feature non-standard or slang
4 Exploring the language of poems, plays and prose

grammar in their lyrics: double negatives such as We

Dont Need No Education (Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd)
and I Cant Get No Satisfaction (Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones).
Some musicians go even further, adding in the equally non-standard
aint, as in Aint No Sunshine by Bill Withers, and You Aint Nothing
But a Hound Dog (Hound Dog by Elvis Presley).

Perhaps the best example of deliberate breaking of the rules is in Louis

Jordans Is You Is Or Is You Aint My Baby?, guaranteed to send your
Word grammar-checker haywire. The non-standard seems almost
standard in rock music.

4. Pronoun Trouble
Whether to use I or me after and is something that even native
speakers of English struggle with. The rule is actually quite simple: take
away the preceding noun and and and use the form of the pronoun that
you would use in that context (so eg Kate and I are going to France this
year, but Its easy for Johnny and me) and yet somehow it can trip
up even the most careful of speakers. But theres no excuse for
songwriters to get it wrong is there? Take this line from The Doors
Touch Me:
Till the stars fall from the sky, for you and I

For I, Jim? Bringing things a little more up to date, Lady Gaga makes
the same error in the song You and I, when she sings:
Oh, yeah, Id rather die
Without you and I

Gaga, a serial offender, is guilty of the reverse error in the song Bad
Romance, with this line:
You and me could write a bad romance.

Me could write a bad romance? If only she could pay as much attention
to her pronouns as she does to her outfits
 Who is stylistics? 5

3. You wouldnt let it lay

Moving on to a different type of error, what was Bob Dylan thinking in

the song, Lay Lady Lay when he invited his lady to lay across his big
brass bed? Surely Bob Dylan knew the rule? You lie on a surface.
(intransitive) You lay a person or a thing on a surface. (transitive) Or
perhaps not?

Eric Clapton also ignored or was not aware of this grammar rule
while co-writing his 1977 song, Lay Down Sally.

2. How many ins?

At no. 2, we have one of the more famous examples a phrase from

the theme song of the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die, written
by Paul and Linda McCartney:
And if this ever-changing world in which we live in / Makes you give in and cry /
Say live and let die.

The phrase in which we live in, should, of course, be either in which

we live, or which we live in you cant have in in both positions. But
then this wouldnt have scanned (= had the right number of syllables for
the line). So did the McCartneys add the extra in thinking no one would
notice? Were they even aware of their mistake? Did they, in fact, ever
write this incorrect lyric? Asked about the line many years later,
McCartney said he couldnt quite remember what hed written, but
added that he thought it was probably, in which were livin, which is, of
course, perfectly correct. Well let you be the judge.
6 Exploring the language of poems, plays and prose

1. Dreams arent made of this

And the award for the most egregious lyrical error of all time goes to
[drum roll] Alicia Keys! In her anthemic ode to New York, Empire State
of Mind, Ms Keys describes this famous city as:
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

Oh Alicia, relative clauses can be tricky things, but where dreams are
made of? It should be either which dreams are made of or where
dreams are made. But maybe which dreams, with the consonant
sounds of ch followed by d, doesnt flow as nicely when sung, and the
preposition of at the end of the line is needed to make it scan.

Do you know any ungrammatical, or otherwise nonsensical, lyrics that

make you see red? Let us know?

20 Songs with Really Bad Grammar

May 26, 2009 60 Comments
Peter Lee

As a former journalist and being the son

of an English professor and librarian, Im sensitive to proper
grammar. Ive learned to bite my tongue whenever someone says
Between he and I or irregardless, although I have been known
to correct signs in grocery stores and restaurants. Its an affliction,
Ill admit.
Recently, a friend of mine reminded me of how I used to make fun
of Paula Abduls Opposites Attract, in which every verse begins
with the words It aint. That got me thinking about other
grammar violations in songs.
 Who is stylistics? 7

There are a lot of songs with bad grammar. Horrible, awful

grammar. So many, in fact, that Ive had to limit my search to only
the worst offenders. Here the best bad grammar examples in
music, grouped by type of grammar felony.

Improper use of the objective pronoun

o Bryan Adams, Run to You But thatd change if she ever found
out about you and I. Simple rule here, folks. Take out the you
and and see if the sentence makes sense. Sorry, Bryan. Its
supposed to be you and me. Ill give you a break because
youre Canadian, eh?
o Queen, Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy Id like for you and I
to go romancing. Doh! I thought only bad artists committed
grammar violations! No, Freddie, no!
o Eric Carmen, Hungry Eyes I feel the magic between you and
I. I doesnt even rhyme with eyes, and its almost the
same word! Couldnt you say you use pies or rise?
o Paula Cole, I Dont Want to Wait So open up your morning
light /And say a little prayer for I. Good Lord. She followed the
above rule and still screwed it up. And again, the verses dont
rhyme. What about Have a cup of morning tea / And say a
little prayer for me? Makes about as much sense and is
grammatically correct.

Misspelled lyrics
o Fergie, Fergalicious T to the A to the S-T-E -Y / Girl, youre
tasty. Thanks, Fergie and will.i.am, a whole generation of kids
will now misspell tasty, and for that matter, William. But
what do you expect from two of the people who gave us the
song that inspired this blog?

Lie vs. Lay

I learned this one from Mrs. Jenkins seventh grade English class.
Lie is for lying down, to make oneself horizontal on a surface; it
does not carry an object. Lay requires an object, i.e., youre
laying something on a table. Easy enough, right? Apparently not:
o Eric Clapton, Lay Down Sally. I would try to give him the
benefit of the doubt and think that he was telling someone
that he was laying Sally down on a bed or the ground. But
then he starts talking to her in the second verse. No, hes
telling her to lie down. Guilty!
o Bob Dylan, Lay Lady Lay. And hes supposed to be a poet.
o Bonnie Raitt, I Cant Make You Love Me. Lay down with me,
tell me no lies. Maybe she didnt want to have the word lie in
two consecutive verses. Still no excuse.

Making up words to complete a rhyme

8 Exploring the language of poems, plays and prose

o Gwen Stefani, Bubble Pop Electric Im restless, cant you see

I try my bestest. No, Gwen, you didnt give it your best.
o Justin Timberlake, What Goes Around When you cheated
girl, my heart bleeded girl. I know, Justin, it seems like the past
tense of bleed should be bleeded, but its not. English is
weird. Hey, I just had this conversation with my 4-year-old the
other day
o Trace Adkins, Honky Tonk Badonkadonk I hate to mention
a country song, because that opens up a whole new realm of
grammar mistakes. But badonkadonk? Really?

Special subcategory: Just making up

words
o Young Rant/Shorty B, Can We Conversate / Case,
Conversate When did conversate become a word? I
guess instead of admiring someone, well soon admirate
someone. Or instead of authorizing something, well
authorizate it.

Redundant redundancy
o Everclear, I Will Buy You a New Life I will buy you a new
car, perfect, shiny and new. Yes, but will it be new?

Subject-verb agreement
o The Police, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Everything she do just turns me on. Perhaps Sting is keeping in
line with the whole reggae/ska feel of the Polices early music.
But using does here really wouldnt hurt.
o Timbaland, The Way I Are Can you handle me the way I are?
Does anyone really talk like this?

The unexplainable
o Dan Fogelberg, Stars Far too many stars have fell on me.
For some reason I expected more from Fogelberg. Jeez, he
even uses the word fickle in this song. How can you do that
and get the past participle of fall wrong?
o Backstreet Boys, Ill Never Break Your Heart As time goes
by, you will get to know me a little more better. Maybe if she
spends more time with you, shell know you much more
betterer. Then shell know you the betterest. Gwen Stefani will
think thats the most bestest, Im sure.
o Gwen Stefani, Rich Girl If I was a rich girl The rule here
is the past subjunctive requires the plural form of the verb to
be. Thats a tough rule, and Gwen may not have known that.
But this is a remake of the Fiddler on the Roofsong, If I WERE a
Rich Man. So for some reason, she thought the original
composers were wrong, and she, the grammar queen, would
make the verse grammatically correct. Either that, or she has
an evil plot to dumb down America. Or shes kinda stupid. I
mean, who else had two songs on this list?
 Who is stylistics? 9

o Kanye West, Jesus Walks Yo, We at war/We at war with

terrorism, racism, and most of all we at war with ourselves/God show
me the way because the Devil trying to break me down Now I know
targeting Kanye West lyrics is like shooting fish in a barrel, but
I find this one fascinating. Kanye doesnt seem to understand
the concept of helping verbs. How hard would it be to change
We to Were? Still the same number of syllables

Honorable Mention
Lee Greenwood, God Bless the U.S.A Im proud to be an American,
where at least I know Im free. At first glance, this seems okay.
But Regina over at AmIRight.com exposes the grammar offense.
Her analysis is spot-on:
While the singers patriotic sentiments are touching, the relationship of
dependent and independent clauses here just doesnt work. That is
because the connector, where, is a place-referent connector and
therefore needs an antecedent of place in the independent clause. But
there is no antecedent of place. That is to say, Im proud to be in
America, Where at least I know Im free would work grammatically,
but the actual lines here dont, since an American does not imply a
place, but is followed by where, which needs to refer back to a place.
Thats so snobby. I love it especially when describing such a
snobby, pompous song as God Bless the U.S.A.
Finally, Id like to clear up a misconception about what continually
comes up as a grammar felony: Paul McCartney and Wings Live
and Let Die. Many have interpreted the lyrics at the beginning of
the song as But if this ever-changing world in which we live in /
makes you give in and cry, and note the two ins as a
grammar faux pas.
But the correct words could also be: But if this ever-changing world
in which were livin. So not only would McCartney avoid a
grammar felony, but he would also manage to avoid ending his
sentence in a preposition. Bravo, Paul!

Coming up next, our grand prize winner. I give you one of the worst
offenders of the English language Ive ever seen. The queen of the
bad grammar songs. (Hint: Her name rhymes with fianc.)