December 1, 2008 - Proper English (“Where’s It At?”)
If you do not care how your high school age son or daughter fares on the SAT-I exam, do not bother reading any more of this article.
“Let’s see where we’re at.” My teeth ache when I hear this expression uttered, especially by well-educated professionals. I have been around longer than most people (55 years), and I have heard all kinds of expressions in all kinds of English dialects in all kinds of socioeconomic situations. I love the English language, especially the Americanized version of it. However, over the last twenty years it has seemed to me that my native tongue has been under assault by casual speakers who think nothing of committing “verbicide.” Foremost among the egregious sins foisted on the world by this linguistic horde are the use and overuse of the expession, “Where’s it AT?”
Is this a Californa phenomenon? A northern California phenomenon? I doubt it. I have smarted at its sound in Scranton, excruciated over its expression in Elizabeth, prickled over its proclamation in Pittsburgh, winced at its wording in Washington, and grumbled at its gibbering in Greensboro.
So what’s wrong with “Where’s it at?” you may ask. Some of you may think that I object to the use of a preposition at the end of a sentence or question. Far from it. Despite my awareness of the technical error of placing a preposition at the end of a sentence, that is something up with which I will occasionally put. No, the real problem with “Where’s it at?” is that we do not, repeat do not, need the preposition “at” at all! If you were lucky enough to have a grammar fanatic for a teacher at some point in your school career, and especially if you were lucky enough to have an old battle-axe (as I was), you would have learned, as I did, that all prepositions require objects, and that the adverb, “where,” is therefore being hung out to dry in this situation. “Where is it?” “Where are they?” “Let’s see where we are.” What is wrong with these simple, declarative statements and questions?
Thirty years ago, the expression, “Where’s it at?” was the subject of a totally inappropriate joke (inappropriate by today’s standards, anyway). The underlying premise of the joke was that people who used this expresson were ignorant, uneducated and, even worse, poorly spoken. In the ensuing years, I have heard intelligent people, many of them far more intelligent than I, use it. I have heard well-educated people use it (most with college degrees, many with masters degrees, some with PhD’s). But, as all our mothers have told us through the years, just because somebody else does somethng wrong does not make it all right for the rest of us to mess up.
Why do we add this irritating little sound to our spoken vocabulary? Do our brains need to have three syllables all the time? “Where’s it?” does sound funny. So why not just say, “Where is it?” Do we like the simple sound, the simple rhyme, of the word “at”? Bat, rat, cat, gnat - there, did I just make you feel better? Is “Where’s it at” a nervous pause-filler like “like”?
I know, I know. The English language is a constantly changing organism whose rules need not be observed, let along worshipped. Horse hockey! Just because a huge percentage of us incorrectly express ourselves does not make doing so OK in my book. What’s next, using the word “ain’t” because everyone else uses it?
Several years ago, I was administering one of California’s public school STAR exams in the high school where I was teaching. At one point during testing, I heard raucous laughter from an adjoining room, accompanied by cries of “Way to go, Mr. Hayne!” At the next break, I asked a sophomore student what had transpired in that room. “Oh, Mr. Hayne, you’d love this. One of the first questions on our English test involved the phrase, ‘Where’s it at?’ We know how psychotic you are about that expression, so we were just expressing our thanks to you for helping us get the question right.”
High school juniors and sophomores, beware! The SAT-I has a writing section, two thirds of which will test your knowledge of proper English. That means that almost one fourth of your total SAT-I score is going to depend on how well you were listening when that tiresome old lady or that boring old gentleman in middle school tried to teach you the fundamentals of English grammar and usage.
The “at” to which we have all become attached has to go. And good riddance.
And that’s where I (ahem) am.