I have noticed more and more people using the combination of words "how come" in place of "why". Why on earth would anyone do this? Do people love the sound of their voices so much they have to invent longer expressions?
I have included only a few of the plethora of examples found on the Internet. I can understand it most in the Dennis the Menace, since it is most fitting as a child's expression. But as the title of a book? Egad! Why on earth would a publisher let that pass scrutiny?
From the cigarette ad at the top, it's sadly clear that this is no recent phenomenon. The ad is from 1977, and surely grammar was not as lax back then as it is now. I refer to Jan Venolia's Write Right!, 4th edition published in 2001. "Perhaps no other grammar rule has prompted so many to say so much as the now-outdated rule prohibiting ending a sentence with a preposition." Outdated??!
Heresy! Heresy, I say!
It is a beginning of the tattering of the language's binding. You all know what happens when the binding comes off a blanket. Soon the blanket is used as a rag, then finds its way to the dog's bed, later used to wipe up oil on the floor of the garage. Finally, the landfill.
To what is the world coming?
Mend our precious blanket of the English language. Don your needle and thread of tradition and literary rules. Let no hole go unattended, regardless of size. Do not stand for "ain't", "irregardless" or "heighth" in a dictionary serve any purpose but to point the dear student to the correct usage elsewhere in its hallowed pages.
Be strong, lovers of English and keep the fires burning.
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