Hawking the Scene

The World According To Americans

This is funny because it's true.  

Though I'm sure most Americans couldn't even label this much.  Notice that America is larger than all of Eurasia. 

Santa...ha!

I'm not ill. How is yourself?

I was recently at an interview where my interviewer responded to my greeting with, “I’m well, yourself?”  I was briefly taken aback because he not only uttered two of my pet peeves, but he also broke two remedial grammar rules using a mere three words and lost a lot of my respect in the process. This is the sort of language I expect to hear from my 14-year old niece on Facebook, not the Vice President of a respected agency.  

 I am not going to explain the use of linking verbs, predicate adjectives and reflective pronouns here; but rather ask the appropriate way to proceed with this formal conversation.  My friend Hollis and I were debating the issue last week.  Do you:

a.)    continue using the incorrect grammar that he introduced in the beginning of the interview?

b.)    use correct grammar throughout, regardless?

Hollis believes I should have used correct grammar throughout, which I did.  However, after the interview I wondered whether that was the correct decision.  My interviewer continued to use the word yourself incorrectly as a personal pronoun all through the interview and I didn’t follow his lead.  Because of this, is it possible that he thought that I wasn’t speaking properly?

 Dissecting, as I always do, I thought, Was he silently judging me as I was judging him?  Did he check me off his list of contenders because he wrongly thought I was misusing pronouns?  Why was his tie so loud?  Did my stubbornness just cost me a job?  What should I have for lunch today?  The first of these four questions echoed in my head as I removed my tie in preparation of planting my face into a burrito bowl from Chipotle.

Normally I would never question my judgment or dumb down my grammar, but in these times of employment hardship, it’s necessary to examine the entire process.  In the meantime, “I’m not ill.  How is yourself?”   

Thoughts?