Sir, – Dáithí Mac Cárthaigh (Letters, July 7th) is right in everything he says about the decline of the adverb and the death of the past participle.
I would add the comic idiocy of the hanging participle. “Looking wet, bedraggled, starving, and miserable – the Irish Navy has picked up more than . . . ” is the sort of introduction we hear a dozen times a day on RTÉ and the BBC.
I would add the invariant nominative, as in: “This seemed shocking to my husband and I” – from people who would never say: “. . . seemed shocking to I.”
– Yours, etc,
M ROSS-MACDONALD
Birr,
Offaly.
Sir, – Dáithí Mac Cárthaigh (Letters, July 7th) draws timely attention to the shameful decline in the correct use of English by professional journalists.
I wonder whether the new form I have heard used in the last few days by one of our foremost broadcasters has emerged to compensate for “the death of the past participle and related conditionals”: “[if] they had’ve”.
What exactly is meant by this? – Yours, etc,
PÁDRAIGÍN RIGGS
Bishopstown,
Cork.