By Mickey Dunaway

Reprinted with Permission by Currents Magazine | MAR 1, 2026| Cornelius, NC

When I first thought about the subject of this column, it was 1:00 p.m. on February 4, with a high of 37 degrees that day. We had had snow again the night before, and the backyard was covered again.

Okay. I was ready to give up. North Carolina is supposed to be the state of long Falls and Springs, and short, relatively mild Summers and Winters. Forget that. It was so cold this past February that it felt like the month just slipped by, and that is almost true, as I spent most of it at the windows in my office, fantasizing about trout fishing in April. March is now here as I write this, and today the high temperature is 83! It is supposed to be 60. Spring will soon be gone, and the best trout fishing with it.

I have had enough of global warming; if it gets any warmer, I will have to buy a snow blower. This weather over the last two months is making this ol’ easy-going Southern boy downright ornery. 

The up-and-down, backwardness of the weather makes me want to go out to my backyard and yell the old line from the movie  Network. “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RujOFCHsxo). But the new March temps will just make me sweaty, and I will come back inside and change shirts.

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My cussedness about the weather has made me think of a few more things I am not pleased about. And, I can do nothing about them except what I am about to do—share them with you, so you can be ornery, too!

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Most of the following peccadillos stem from our declining proficiency in English and the increasing misuse or ignorance of the rules of speaking and writing. I am not an English teacher, although I am a founding member of the Grammar Police. No, there is no such organization. It just feels like it should be sometimes. I wish I had kept track of all the poorly written master’s degree papers I graded in my 14 years as a professor at the University of North Carolina — Charlotte.  

My wife is an associate member of the GP, and we often collectively cringe at the decline in language in modern media. Below are a few of my hated favorites. I don’t know if ignorance of language and lack of civility are co-joined twins, but it seems that way. Hang on. Here goes my rant.

Each and Every. This is so prevalent, especially among politicians and coaches. 

Pick one. Please. The two words mean the same thing, sound much the same, and interestingly, carry very little meaning, which just makes it worse.

He and I.  The phrase “Friday night’s pub-crawl was a disaster for she and I” is deplorable, especially by a broadcaster or otherwise expected-to-be-an-educated person. However, He and I went to a movie, which is perfectly acceptable, but is quickly sliding downward toward grammar’s version of hell. It seems that people are so afraid of abusing the King’s English that they end up perverting it worse, if unintentionally, which is no excuse. 

Does no one teach that the object of a preposition cannot be a nominative case pronoun? Obviously not. No one sounds sophisticated when they use the wrong case pronoun.

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The F-word. I am not a prude. I was a high school principal for a dozen years and have heard almost every example of teenage blue language in spoken English.  Stop it. 

Why does it bother me so? Because I am a Southerner whose upbringing firmly remains entrenched in his synapses, and I had Willie T. Ford as an English teacher for grades 7-9, I resent the gutter language of our current society.

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Fake Southern Accents. So, where have the Southern actors gone? Surely, there are some with all the streaming opportunities. But still, the fake Southern accents prevail.

Sam Elliot’s drawl is a thing of beauty to hear. So glad he has not been convinced to change. And no one is better than Morgan Freeman. The authentic Tennessee mountain drawl is nowhere better than in Nine to Five. Dolly’s accent is heaven-sent. 

The Southern accent is not the syrupy, twangy intonation so often presented to us in movies and television. Producers and actors—just come and spend some time among us. We are proud of our brogues that differ so lovingly from state to state. North Carolina is home to multiple lilting drawls.

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“”Acronyms.” When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that commercial speech by corporations is protected, the floodgates were opened, and every drug manufacturer’s insidious ad campaigns poured out. Morgan Freeman is one of my Southern heroes. What a voice. But his latest ad hits acronyms (ATTR) and the cute drug name, Attruby. 

Can you say “Transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR)”? Me either. And must we have: LOL (laugh out loud), BRB(be right back), BTW (by the way), IDK (I don’t know), TBH (to be honest), and FOMO (fear of missing out)? And, FR(for real), NGL(not gonna lie), IYKYK(if you know, you know), HMU(hit me up),  and POS(parent over shoulder).

There are 93 acronyms approved by the U.S. Department of Justice. Really there are. Just check out this URL (www.justice.gov/nsd-ovt/us-government-acronym-list). Doggone it. URL is another acronym. It stands for Uniform/Universal Resource Locator.

Damn, I hate acronyms.

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The State of College Athletics. I will not dwell on this for as long as I would like, for that would fill an entire of Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition, which by the way, came out in early February. Up here in cosmopolitan Charlotte, we already have NIL in high schools. Now, what will a high school kid do with a Maserati? The sports we grew up with and played in high school are no more. Worse of all, how can one get together a pickup game of summer baseball in times like these?

I love college sports. At least I used to before they morphed right in front of my eyes. Perhaps university athletics and universal betting are the canaries in the coal mine of our society. I pray not.

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Thank you for this opportunity to share my state of excited irritation a bit. I promise not to do it again until at least mid-July.