1. Pink Floyd ‘s massive 1979 hit “Another Brick in the Wall” annoyed a generation of teachers as children chanted, “we don’t need no education”. The band Pink Floyd had originally been formed in the 1960s when its members were architecture students, so it’s not as if they weren’t educated themselves. Surely they ought to know better. English does not use double negatives. So why did Pink Floyd get it “wrong”? Probably it was a deliberate grammatical error, an ironic comment on the failure of the education system. Also it sounds better. It’s hard to imagine millions of children singing, “We don’t need any education”.
2. More importantly, the dialects that use this alternative grammar are cool. In Standard English (often called Queen’s English or Received Pronunciation) we only use a double negative for a positive meaning. If I say Don’t just say nothing I am making an emphatic request: Please say something! But in less privileged dialects across the UK and US, the double negative has always been common. It’s just one of the non-standard features of many regional dialects characteristics of the working classes in Britain and America.
3.I GOT THE BLUES So how in the 20th century, has this alternative grammar become the language of song-writing? The slaves of the Deep South in the United States mixed working class language with Creole influence. When the church bands in New Orleans started improvising jazz, they used the language of the old spirituals, the songs that slaves had sung in order to survive. Ever since, the language of black America, oppressed but vibrant, has dominated popular music.
4. Sam Philips, the man who discovered Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee, was looking for a white boy who sounded black, when he found him. The Beatles spoke with English accents, but sang as if they were from the Mississippi delta. Pink Floyd’s name comes from two of the blues singers from Georgia, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Rap and hip hop use the slang of city streets –the language of minorities and therefore of protest. It’s alternative. It’s rebellious. And it sounds good.
5. So a strange phenomenon has occurred. In the past, the middle classes tried to speak Received Pronunciation, to improve your social standing. Nowadays, this snobbery has become inverted. The language of the ruling classes is frowned upon. Rock music instead aligns itself with the common man against privilege. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones led the way by dropping his middle class tones for a cool Cockney accent. Ever since, pop stars have tried not to sound unfashionably posh.
6.YOU WANNA? YOU GOTTA! Why did the Beatles write I Wanna Hold your Hand instead of “I want to...? It’s smoother, it’s conversational, it’s the language of young people. Oasis, too, use contractions in You Gotta Roll with it. Prince anticipated e-mail and text messaging by shortening his song title Nothing Compares 2U.
7. The most obvious alternative is ain’t, the convenient negative of thewhole present tense of “am” and “have”. Elvis sang You Ain’t Nothingbut a Hound Dog. In Roger Miller’s country hit, The King of the Road,he sings, ain’t got no cigarettes. Why? Because “I haven’t got anycigarettes” just wouldn’t sound right. Elvis also sang the classic YouDone me Wrong. It should be “You did me wrong” or “You’ve done mewrong”. Yet many native speakers frequently make such errors. Scottish footballers tend to say, “he’s took the ball / he’s run up thepitch” and “he’s went and scored”. Haven’t they confused the pastparticiples (taken, gone) with the past simple forms? Well, yes –inStandard English.
8. THE GRAMMAR PROBLEM Songwriters, from Pink Floyd to Eminem, are often blamed forspreading bad language and poor grammar among today’s youngpeople. Yet grammar receives little attention in schools, while spellingis constantly tested. Ask a Brit about the present perfect and they willthink you are talking about Christmas gifts. Phrasal verbs andcountable nouns are a mystery to us.
9. Meanwhile access to alternative accents and dialects is increasing. When in the 1980s, Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert McNeilwere preparing their BBC television series THE STORY OF ENGLISH,they were amazed to find young English girls using the latest blackAmerican slang. Nowadays children learn not only from their parentsand teachers, but from music, films and the internet.
A.S.A/09 Text from Think in English