Our elders were correct.
I remember my grade school teacher was mortified by the advertisement "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should."
She once spoke in length about this in class. And all these years later I still recall what she said.
She said this would open the door for future mangling of the language. She said that people of her generation with at least a high school education generally took the stance that the formal use of language and it's rules should be followed, with no, or very few exceptions. She said they were rules for a reason.
She said that the use of language reflects a society's culture, wants and needs, self image, views, environment, preferences, priority's, structure, and intelligence. She went on to say that the younger generation was using the language in a more lax manner, and that it may seem trivial, but that doing so would have a detrimental effect on society in the long term.
I was young, maybe 13 years old, and I thought she was crazy to state these things. I was of the opinion what is the difference? Language is for communication, as long as that is accomplished, the job is done. Leave the complex stuff to the poets and mensa's, I thought.
The older generation of the late 60's and early 70's (and earlier then that) were also very critical of rock and roll music, and cursing, and "free love."
Most of us younger folk were of the mind that they were just clueless, and maybe even mean spirited, with their constant and loud disapproval of what we regarded as a much needed change and loosening up of their very uptight society.
We saw the way they had managed America, the wars, the consumerism, the pollution, their treatment of minorities, and the embedded hypocrisy, and were resolutely against much of what they said and how they conducted themselves.
It turns out that while that younger generation was right in examining and rejecting many things about the America our parents and grandparents were passing on to us, it was a classic example of "don't throw the baby out with the bath water" scenario.
Turns out they were right about many things though. Sex out of marriage and multiple partners and sex with someone of the same gender is a absolute abomination. They were correct in stating that some of the music of their children and grand children could be destructive. The music that provoked acid trips, and the violent lyrics of rap are proof of that. The use of cursing in our speech is something that can be demonic.
The people who suffered through the depression and who fought WW ll and who were proud of a soft American imperialism were flawed, no doubt. And it is fair to say that maybe they were even control freaks, and fearful of, the younger people, but with age comes some wisdom, and they saw that some of what was going on in the younger segment of the population was one day going to extract a heavy payment. Reaping and sowing.
The bible is never wrong. It talks about the sons respecting the fathers, and the fathers not exasperating the their sons.
So yeah, imho, bad grammar and spelling and general laziness in using language is just of reflection of how our American civilization has fallen. And you know the old saying, it is still true today; how America goes, the world goes.
From Wilki:
Grammar controversy[edit]
During the campaign's long run in the media, many criticized the slogan as grammatically incorrect and that it should say, "Winston tastes good as a cigarette should." Ogden Nash, in The New Yorker, published a poem that ran "Likegoes Madison Avenue, like so goes the nation."[SUP][10][/SUP] Walter Cronkite, then hosting The Morning Show, refused to say the line as written, and an announcer was used instead.[SUP][11][/SUP]
Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, says that this "ungrammatical and somehow provocative use of 'like' instead of 'as' created a minor sensation" in 1954 and implies that the phrase itself was responsible for vaulting the brand to second place in the U.S. market.[SUP][12][/SUP]Winston overtook Pall Mall cigarettes as the #1 cigarette in the United States in 1966, while the advertising campaign continued to make an impression on the mass media.
In the fall of 1961, a small furor enveloped the literary and journalistic communities in the United States when Merriam-Webster published its Third New International Dictionary. In the dictionary, the editors refused to condemn the use of "like" as a conjunction, and cited "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" as an example of popular colloquial use. After publication of Webster's Third, The New York Times called the edition "bolshevik," and the Chicago Daily News wrote that the transgression signified "a general decay in values."[SUP][13][/SUP]
When the players in The Beverly Hillbillies spoke the line, they stretched the grammatical boundaries further:
Jed: Winston tastes good...Granny: Like a cigarette had ought-a!
In 1970 and 1971, Winston sought to revamp its image and chose to respond to many grammarians' qualms with the slogan, "What do you want, good grammar or good taste?" Mad magazine published a parody of this on the back cover of its January 1971 issue; set in a cemetery, it featured four tombstones with epitaphs written in the past tense ("Winston tasted good like a cigarette should've" "You mean 'as a cigarette should've'" "What did you want, good grammar or good taste?" "I wanted to live a lot longer than this!"). With the new slogan in wide use, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" was retired permanently in 1972.
In 1981, actor James Garner claimed responsibility for the wording of the slogan during an interview with Playboy magazine. Garner, who narrated the original commercial, stated that his first action ever to be captured on film was to misread the line that had been provided to him.[SUP][14][/SUP] However, as noted above, the advertisements first appeared in print before their debut on television, which would cast doubt on Garner's claim.
From a article on the net about the use of "like" and "as":
Should I write, “It's as if he is the only teacher who understands we have other classes," or “It's like he is the only teacher who understands we have other classes”? Believe it or not, saying "like" can lead you into a raging grammar war..
Like Versus As
The root of this “like versus as” controversy is that traditionally like is a preposition and as is a conjunction. Nevertheless, people have been usinglike as if it were a conjunction (as I did) for at least 100 years, and grammarians have been raging against that use for just as long. In fact, the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage states that “probably no single question of usage has created greater controversy in recent years” than the conjunctive use of like.
In 1954, an advertising campaign for Winston cigarettes brought the debate into the public eye. Winston said their cigarettes tasted good “like a cigarette should,” and language lovers were outraged because the ad should have said, their cigarettes tasted good “as a cigarette should.”
What Are Prepositions and Conjunctions?
Let’s quickly review what a preposition is, and what a conjunction is. According to the bookWoe Is I, a preposition is “a word that ‘positions’ or situates words in relation to one another.” Examples are in, around, and through. A conjunction is, simply, “a connecting word.” Common conjunctions are and, but, and or (1).
When to Use Like, When to Use As
The proper way to differentiate between like and as is to use like when no verb follows (2). For example, Squiggly throws like a raccoon or Aardvark acted just like my brother. Notice that when I use like, the words that come after are generally simple. A raccoon and my brother are the objects of the preposition.
If the clause that comes next includes a verb, then you should use as. For example,Squiggly throws as if he were a raccoon or Aardvark acted just as I would expect my brother to behave. Notice that when I use as, the words that come after tend to be more complex.
You generally hear like used in everyday speech, so that helps me remember that like is the simpler word—or at least it is followed by simpler words. As sounds stuffier and is followed by a more complex clause that contains a verb.
And last, that old Winston commercial that was probably the first, and one of the most influential mass medium uses of bad grammar in America. It opened the door for the cascade of what was to come.
[video=youtube;qcq7FCZgLtE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcq7FCZgLtE[/video]
