Stop miseducating people, especially our youth, with your blatant and conscious grammatical misuse of the word "don't." My ears are bleeding, my brain is reeling, and my nerves are grating from the constant abuse of what, for any person educated past the second grade, should be a very simple subject-verb agreement choice.
Perhaps I'm mistaken in my assumption that song writers and singers have been educated past the second grade. Allow me to "teach" you all the correct verb conjugation forms of the infinitive "to do."
Ready? Pay attention. It's pretty damn simple, but I've been known to assume that people are more intelligent than I should really give them credit for being.
Here goes:
infinitive: to do
subject: I verb form: do example: I do care about grammar!
subject: You verb form: do example: You do us an injustice with your lackadaisical approach to subject-verb agreement.
subject: He, She, or It verb form: does (Oh, did you notice the change, or do I need to show it to you again?) examples: It does matter. . He does love me. She does want to learn.
subject: We verb form: do example: We do want to improve the world one word at a time.
subject: They verb form: do example: They do, too.
Now, here's the tricky part -- when you make these sentences negative, you insert the word "not" after the form of "to do." Thus, you get "I do not care about grammar!" -- which isn't remotely true, by the way.
Here it gets even trickier -- you can then form a "contraction" of the form of "to do" and the word "not." How clever is that? Thus, we get the words "don't" and "doesn't."
Now, since it is only with the third person singular subjects (It, He, She or any single thing or person's name) where we use the word "does," I can see where somebody under the age of six could get confused. However, since I'll assume that toddlers are not the ones writing these offensive song lyrics, let's appreciate that adults are capable of great intelligence, so they can also easily remember that the verb changes to "does" when the subject is a third person singular entity.
I realize that some of the earlier offenders may have been playing around with their poetic licenses for the sake of rhyme or syllabification purposes, but enough is enough. I believe that far too many people now think that "it don't," "he don't," and "she don't" are grammatically correct, and I think they've come to that conclusion through the overuse (the over-misuse) of these pairings in music lyrics.
You know the influence music and song lyrics have upon people. Of course you know this! That's why music and lyrics are a part of everything from our daily drives to work to the opening sequence of our favorite TV shows to our extensive wait time when put on hold while waiting to speak to a representative!
Yet, you choose to continually assail our ears with "it don't" and "he don't" and "she don't" when you know damn well that those should be "it doesn't" and "he doesn't" and "she doesn't."
Our nation's youth listen to a LOT of music. These same kids regularly say things like "It don't matter," "He don't know what he's talking about," and "She don't understand." Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!
I, as a teacher amidst these misguided young people, spend a good portion of every single day attempting to correct their usage. I'm often met with blank stares and comments such as "It don't matter." Yes! Yes, it does! See that? I said "it does," not "it do!"
When I turn their negatives into affirmatives and ask them if they'd say "It do matter," or "He do know . . . ," or "She do understand," they laugh at me like I'm an idiot because they know better than to say those things. Why do they know better? Can it be that the music industry actually knows to use the affirmative forms of "to do" correctly, so these students are not bombarded daily with misusages like they are with the negative third person singular of "to do?"
So, to those of you in the Country Music sector and the Pop Music arena and the Rap industry and every other part of the culture of music who are choosing to misrepresent our wonderful language to the extent that it is seeping into the daily language of Americans, I ask that you please, for the love of all that is sacred, stop the insanity!
And for those of you reading this who think you sound just fine saying "He don't appreciate me," or "She don't know where it is," you are dead wrong. You sound like a fucking idiot!
Sincerely,
Every fed-up conscientious English speaker in America
p.s. If you don't like what I wrote, you can "shtick this" where the sun doesn't shine!
(Maybe that's because you DON'T know how to speak correctly!!!!)
