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Bad English

From This Might Be A Wiki

No, not the 80s band.

  • Alphabet Lost And Found - "Where they gonna go"
  • Am I Awake? - "When I get through this day, can someone tell me how, and how much longer now, am I awake?"
  • Ana Ng - ... If there was a me for you should be If there were a me for you. (past subjunctive [formal] rather than past indicative [vernacular])
  • Asbury Park - "Me got kicked in the head"
  • Brain Problem Situation - "And I think, maybe, but I don't know, but I'm starting to feel like I got a brain problem situation on my hands."
  • Broke In Two - "Then is when I maybe should have wrote it down". Wrote is past tense of write. Should be have written.
  • Cabbagetown - "I was laying on the porch" Should be "I was lying on the porch".
  • Cut The Strings - "I don't need no ten dimensions / Ain't afraid of quantum jitter"
  • Dee Dee And Dexter - "Don't need no super powers"
  • The End Of The Tour - "If there's any more people around"
  • Half A Boy - "You never took me serious"
  • Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal - "And no one ever seemed to care if it's not", "something else that I've got" - the rest of the song is in the past tense, so these lines would normally be "if it wasn't" and "I'd got"
  • If I Wasn't Shy - Should be If I Weren't Shy (past subjunctive [formal] rather than past indicative [vernacular])
  • I'll Sink Manhattan - "A river of tiny tears flow from your crocodile eyes" subject/verb agreement ("the river flows", not "the tears flow")
  • I've Got A Fang - "Her head exploded like 'a' atom bomb" should be "Her head exploded like 'an' atom bomb"
  • Los Angeles - "And they're listening good" ; "Now listen good"
  • Maybe I Know- "I feel so badly" -- This would mean that the singer does a bad job of feeling. Strangely, the line is "He really loves me" in the original. Although the Johns reverse the gender throughout the the song, I don't know why they changed this line entirely.
  • Metal Detector - "Don't need no volleyball / don't need no squawking gull"
  • Michigan - "The tank the fishes are in"
  • Number Three - "There's only two songs in me..." - "songs" is plural, therefore the sentence should read "there are only two songs in me..."
  • Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head - "Didn't have to write no-one a good-bye note" (double negative)
  • Rat Patrol - "Wilderness of mirrors shine"
  • Rest Awhile - "Out of the burning wreckage I fell, wanting only to lay where I fell" should be "lie where I fell".
  • Robot Parade - "There's electric cars. There's electric trains."
  • The Shadow Government - "I doth protest" - "Doth" is an antiquated conjugation of the verb "to do," but for the third person singular (as in, "The lady doth protest") and not the first person singular as it is used here.
  • Stalk Of Wheat - "And I was out of ideas, like I is, like I is" - should be like I am
  • Subliminal - "While lying there in my bed there was a message for me" - This technically means the message was lying in his bed.
  • The Songs Of The 50 States - "I ain't gonna say they ain't" - Properly speaking, it should be "I'm not gonna say they aren't".
  • Thunderbird - "We like fun, me and my girl" - Me is one of the subjects in this phrase. Should be I. Also, when there are other subjects in a sentence, the first person pronoun follows the other: "We like fun, my girl and I."
  • Tigerella - After work she gets the polish out and paints 'em pretty claws -- 'em as contraction of them; should be those
  • Till My Head Falls Off - "Now there's thirty left" - Should be "There are."
  • Twisting - "There's not a lot of things that she'll take back" - Should be "There are."
  • Why Does The Sun Shine? (Here Comes Science Version) - "A million Earths could fit insides"
  • Wicked Little Critta - "I got problems"
  • Your Racist Friend - "I know politics bore you" -- Used in this context, "politics" is singular, so the line should be be "I know politics bores you".