They’re, their, there, it’s only grammar

THERE is such a plethora of young male artists singing sad songs about lost love. Their hearts tend to be broken and/or bleeding, and worn firmly on their sleeves.

They say meaningful beautiful things about the souls of the objects of their (usually frustrated) loves, things very similar to the inspirational quotes you find online. Things like “Push yourself, no one else is going to do it for you”. “Impossible really says I’M Possible.”

The quotes are almost always attributed to Einstein. It’s amazing he had time to come up with the theory of relativity.

These lads, however, are more along the One True Love lines of, “I knew you, I never wanted to know anyone else”. One song has some line about how he wishes someone would love him a little bit. Which, like many an inspirational quote — even Einstein’s — sounds really deep... until you think about it a bit and you go, wait, what? That makes zero sense, dude.

It defo works on teenage girls though. Even me when I was one. Though I would sooner have poked myself in the eye with my black lipstick than confess it.

And whatever about millennials, in 1980s Dublin an openly lovelorn man was truly fictional. But now I think it’s all a cynical marketing ploy.

My daughter, an unashamed fan of broken-hearted balladeers, declares this is proof of my codgeriness. Naturally I dispute this but then last week I uttered a sentence that meant I could no longer deny it.

“Tsk, there are two grammatical errors in that bloody chorus. You can’t say ‘a little less lies’. And it’s not ‘you shouldn’t have took’, it’s taken”.

The Girlchild said, “That’s not even a mammy thing to say, it’s a granny thing.”