It’s no secret I’m a Writer. This is a profession of slogging and pimping yourself out there as best as you possibly can to scratch a few bucks together. Nothing about the job is forgiving, save for maybe the fact I don’t have to listen to idiots drone on about nothing all day. But being a Writer also brings up other less savory things like assessing spelling and grammar everywhere I go.
When today’s track started playing I immediately had a rush of memories back to a time when a big group of us used to hang out over one friend’s house and play music, dance around and generally just joke and have a great time with each other. Listening to pop music was always a fun way to spend a day or night.
But the cuteness of the lead singer has worn off and even though the track is upbeat and fun I’m having an extremely difficult time getting past the title now. In fact, seeing the little red squiggle line under one of the words in the title is making the vein in my forehead actually throb with irritation.
“Your Da One I Onena Love” is a track off Color Me Badd’s first album cleverly titled CMB.
Go ahead and read that title again, I’ll wait.
See? See what I mean? Let’s just break it down, and not in a pop boy-band dance number in the middle of the song kind of way.
Your. Definition: “a form of the possessive case of you used as an attributive adjective.” Better known as something only the ‘You’ in question can have – your jacket, your kitchen renovation, your snarky attitude.
If the boys in CMB (or whoever wrote it) had titled the song “Your Love’s Da One I Oant” then by all means this would be an appropriate use of this word. But they didn’t. Since they immediately tell the ‘You’ in question that they are ‘da one’, it means ‘Your’ should’ve been ‘You’re’. As in ‘You are the one I want to love’ (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah – but don’t even get me started on the lack of chorus, this is about grammar).
You’re. Definition: “contraction of you are.” Better known as something the speaker is assigning to you – you’re the best, you’re a terrible driver, “You’re Da One I Onena Love”.
Da. Not much to say here other than street slang has been known to make an appearance in song titles for years. I don’t love it but it’s ingrained enough that I know the word means ‘The’. I’ll let it slide just this once.
One; I. I have no issue with these words. They’re both spelled correctly and placed to get the point across.
Onena. Okay, what the fuck? I mean, I know the song so I understand this is supposed to be some type of cryptic spelling of ‘Wanna’ (though I’d prefer ‘Want to’) but wanna is a slang only added to the dictionary in the last few decades. And now they want to change it to onena? Really? Are they trying to throwback to two words ago? Someone should’ve told them that assonance is better left to poets and scholars who understand how to use it without creating erroneous words of their own that will never make it into a dictionary.
Love. The real truth. The thing I hate to admit. Despite all the title’s flaws I do still love this song.
Self-proclaimed pop princess over here and damn proud of it.
May’s Month of Music
Your Da One I Onena Love – Color Me Badd (iTunes / Pandora first track)
16 comments:
I guess Onena is a reference back to Da One?
Sorry but this - "big group of us used to hang out over one friend’s house" - gave me an image of people hovering in the air over a house. I guess I take things too literally sometimes. ;-)
BTW, don't know the song, can't remember ever hearing it, and probably don't onena!
Love you, Mum
Ummm, get over it Jenn. In the big scheme of things, it's just not that important. Work up some irritation about something bigger...say war or poverty or women's rights.
P.S. the your/you're mistake is one of my pet peeves too. It's right up there with its and it's.
Nope you're absolutely correct. Here I am going on about grammar and forget the word 'at' in a most critical place. Hopefully you can still love me as much as I still love the song :-)
LOL!
xoxo
And there/their/they're!
Trust me I get up for those other things too, I just like to keep it light over here on the blog.
I try so hard to check and recheck my blog before I post... I cringe when I reread some of them and see the errors... it's like I was blind the first ten times... lol
I need people to check it for me first :)
I think your blogs are great and I am big on keeping things light and maybe a positive look..I haven't been around ..don't think I forgot you..Still trying to deal with my life..trying to figure out what God's next plan for me is..Take care my dear friend..always know you are in my thoughts..
Love, Carolyn
Your blog post cracked me up. I love the song (loosely termed) Way I Are, by Timberland. I'll admit, I would never have listened to it twice if the lyrics hadn't made me say WTF the first time I heard them. I used to have that CMB cassette, way back when. My favorite song was the ever-popular, Sex You Up...
Too true. The English language is devolving. I've seen the misuse of words like there, they're and their so often I cannot count them. But I realize that when one is typing quickly mistakes happen however that track title was not hashed out in a heart beat, it was something that had been thought about with time and care.
LOL over your mum's comment - she's one sharp cookie, I see who you take after. :)
My head just exploded. Seriously. I have no idea why musicians choose to use improper grammar. You want everyone to know how stupid you are? Mission accomplished.
That being said I often use 'gonna', 'gotta', and similar lazy words because they look and sound more authentic to me, especially with teen characters. Maybe once I'm done with my first or second draft someone will tell me to smarten it up, and I'll fix it. But my story ain't gonna be ready for publication any time soon, ya know?
That reminds me...I finally bought a copy of Reckless Abandon! :-)
LMFAO this is hilarious! I can imagine you getting all worked up about the title, but then dancing and rocking out to it... shaking you're money maker!
MUAHAHAHA! Juuuust kidding! *your*
I've never really listened to them, but WTF is up with "Onena"? I honestly had no clue as to what exactly it was meant to represent. That is pretty bad. Pass. Though... shake your money maker all you want :-)
Jak at The Cryton Chronicles & Dreams in the Shade of Ink
Ugh, I know JUST what you mean! Wish I could have an editor on staff for free lol
Oh sweetie don't you for even one second worry about not being around. I know you're still out there and I'm just happy to see you stop by once in a while but your life is in a whole different place now and you should be focused on your family and yourself first and foremost. You're always in my thoughts too xoxo
Ah yes, old school CMB at their finest. Slow Motion was always my very favorite of theirs. So silly and bad but just poppy enough to get by. Thanks for stopping in and leaving a comment :-)
There, their, they're is almost on par with you're and your for me. I just can't deal with improper sentence structure and all this shortened text stuff is fine for text messages (I use it sometimes too) but NOT for something allegedly well written. It just drives me insane knowing these people get paid to post this drivel and I can't get a gig to save my aching keyboard fingers!
Yeah we're a punny family :-)
Right? I mean my hair hurts from seeing some of the stuff that floats around out there (not their or they're!) passing as well written content.
And sometimes music is the worst. I like when musicians can be clever and come up with something else that fits better so it sounds like it was supposed to be that way all along and flows. There's less importance placed on a well structured sentence these days.
On that note though I agree that sometimes using words like gonna and gotta are essential. It sounds less stiff, more genuine like an actual voice.
YEA! Thanks so much my friend tell me what you think when you finish it, I'll be curious to get your take on the book :-)
Sometimes you just have to dance no matter how bad the title is right? Well at least I do :-)
Don't do that to me (you're - your) for a second there I was cringing lol
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