While they may have mastered pundit-style language, it seems they are yet to gain a strong grasp of the English language; mostly demonstrable in their incorrect use of the word ‘We’. Listening to these two guys talk, as well as the plethora of other LADS I hear talking about football on a daily basis, what strikes me most is how many times they use the word ‘We’, or its brother in misuse: ‘You’. Its always: “I think WE can do em’ this weekend”, “WE wont go down this year” or “YOU really need to get a better centre half in the transfer window”, and I’m always left thinking “how are you getting the English language so consistently wrong?” Now I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’m not a complete idiot. I do realise that in this context WE (or YOU respectively) means the team that whichever guy supports, but to me, that doesn’t make any difference, its still wrong. You see ‘We’ implies some kind of collective input from all the concerned parties. So if one of THE LADS says “We beat them on Saturday” that implies that he had some kind of input into that result, when in fact he had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what happened on the pitch. In a way it’s kind of like claiming some of the praise for a positive result without having to put in any of the effort to ensure one. It’s even worse when they use it to assume superiority over the other guy, like “well that’s why We’re in the premiership and You’re still in division 1”, as if they’re using it as some kind of high-ground over the other guy when in fact they’ve done NOTHING to deserve such a superior position, apart from maybe picking which team to support when they were a kid, changing this team when someone else started winning and then giving them irrational amounts of money for shirts every now and then. Maybe my dislike of this facet of THE LADS conversation is a little bit irrational – maybe even a little pathetic – but personally I would never use the word ‘We’ unless I personally had been involved in whatever I was talking about. It’s just not right.