If you want to catch Taylor Swift’s grammar mistakes, you have to think carefully before making a decision. Her grammar knowledge is not as simple as you think!
It is a fact that Taylor Swift’s music products are often analyzed and dissected. Not only did she scrutinize the people she used as the subject of her music composition, many viewers also caught little by little errors in grammar and spelling in Taylor Swift’s songs. But no one would have expected that the “snake king” possesses a profound amount of knowledge that makes everyone admire him. Let’s take a look at a few times the female singer had to show off her talent as a grammar teacher!
An exam study guide suddenly brought up Taylor Swift’s song as an example of grammatical errors, but the reaction they received was “hideous.”
In 2015, a page in the review book of the prestigious test preparation organization The Princeton Review suddenly included a series of lyrics from Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston, Lady Gaga, Timbaland,… with the purpose of pointing out Errors in pronouns, adverbs and tenses in English. Furthermore, the author of this book bluntly calls this “a great source of bad grammar”.
Specifically, the writer pointed out that the line “Somebody tells you they love you, you got to believe ’em” in the song “Fifteen” by Taylor Swift, uses the verb “got” incorrectly. grammar. Accordingly, the most accurate line of the song must be “Somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them” .
Immediately, a Swifties (as Taylor’s fans are called) decided to take a photo of this book page and share it on Tumblr. To answer all questions surrounding the lyrics in “Fifteen”, the female singer said that the exact lyrics are still “Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them” . From the beginning, she never used the verb “got”, Taylor also proved that she always uses correct grammar in her songs.
Perhaps the misquoting of the song offended Taylor, she also left a comment “tormenting” the publisher as follows : “The lyrics above are completely incorrect. You have done a great job.” You should be the one to check it carefully. It’s a very simple thing.” Besides, the voice of “Blank Space” also created a hashtag with the content “You can fault me for anything but never touch my grammar knowledge” .
After Taylor explained clearly, many viewers immediately criticized The Princeton Review’s unprofessional working style. Therefore, this organization apologized directly to the female singer on Twitter and edited the incorrectly written verse.
Yet, despite apologizing, Robert Franek – Editor-in-Chief of The Princeton Review continues to believe that even if these are correct lyrics, there are still grammatical errors. In an interview with MTV, Robert said the next mistake was starting the verse with the indefinite pronoun “somebody”. Accordingly, the correct song line must be “Somebody tells you he/she loves you, you’re gonna believe him/her” or “Some people tell you they love you, you’re gonna believe them” .
For those who don’t know, “Fifteen” is the fourth single from the second studio album titled “Fearless”. This is a song about Taylor’s teenage feelings. In addition, “Fifteen” also excellently reached number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and earned Taylor a Platinum certification from the RIAA.
“Fifteen” MV – Taylor Swift
The hit song “You Belong With Me” also made people “extremely confused” about Taylor Swift’s grammar.
At the time of the release of the song “You Belong With Me”, many viewers asked the question “Is Taylor using incorrect grammar”? Because, across English learning forums, many people think she is making a serious mistake by using “belong with” instead of “belong to” (correct grammar) to name the song. .
Don’t rush to find fault with Taylor! In fact, her use of the phrase “You Belong With Me” is absolutely not grammatically incorrect. On the contrary, it represents a more interesting layer of meaning, “rubbing” the thoughts that Taylor conveys in the song.
Accordingly, “belong with” represents the destiny arranged for a couple, things that should belong to each other. The use of “belong with” partly helps Taylor’s song contain more emotions, increase romance and clearly portray the pure, unrequited feelings of a young girl.
Meanwhile, using “belong to” can make the song become “rough”, completely losing its lightness and purity because this phrase refers to ownership. If included in a song, it would mean possessing someone (i.e. the person you love) and they have no ability to change this.
For those who don’t know, “You Belong With Me” is a single from the second studio album titled “Fearless”. This is considered one of the most successful albums in Taylor’s career when it brought home the spectacular victory “Album of the Year” at the Grammy Awards. As for “You Belong With Me”, the country-pop song about a girl wishing for love with the boy she has a crush on is considered the most outstanding single on the album.
As soon as it was released, the song received a series of positive reviews from music critics, most of whom praised the melody and pure lyrics and called it a highlight of the album. “Fearless”. At the same time, the MV also received the “Best Music Video by Female Artist” award at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
Despite its outstanding success, the song was blocked from reaching No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart because at that time, Taylor could not “beat” the explosion of The Black Eyed Peas with ” I Gotta Feeling”. That’s why, “You Belong With Me” only “nestled” in the runner-up position. Most recently, Teen Vogue magazine also selected “You Belong With Me” as the best song about unrequited love of all time.
MV “You Belong With Me” – Taylor Swift
Swifties just posted a message accusing Taylor of making a grammar mistake, she immediately “rolled up” and tried her best to “bend” back at the fan.
Since the incident of The Princeton Review, catching Taylor’s grammar errors has always been a difficult challenge for those who intend to “find fault”. However, a fan continued to post that the “Shake It Off” singer misspelled a word in the polaroid photo album attached to the album “1989” (deluxe version).
Accordingly, on Tumblr, an account said that the handwritten text in Taylor’s polaroid photo was missing the apostrophe at the word “its”, the correct word here should be “it’s” .
Once declaring “Don’t ever touch my grammar” , Taylor also does not surrender to fans easily. Specifically, the female singer shared that the reason the apostrophe was “discolored” was because she mixed it with the letter “y” in the word “say” in the line above.
Besides, she is not afraid to assert her superior spelling skills. To prove this, Taylor decided to find the opposite error, pointing out… three spelling errors in the fan’s sentence. Not yet, she also took the comment line “uh, taylor there’s supposed to be an apostrophe s on its btw taylorswift “ to dissect, explain thoroughly and guide this audience to write correctly. Spelling too!
Specifically, the singer “Blank Space” believes that there must be a comma before the phrase “btw” (by the way). As for the word “uh”, because it is located at the beginning of the sentence, it needs to be capitalized. At the same time, some other types of punctuation must also be placed at the end of the sentence.
Never challenge Taylor on grammar knowledge! A treasure trove of profound knowledge, no joke!
Maybe Taylor Swift needs to change her alias from “Miss Americana” to “Miss Grammar” urgently!