7 posts tagged “grammar”
Yes, March 4 really is National Grammar Day. And I would have directed you gleefully to the Society For the Prevention of Good Grammar website, until I read this distasteful editorial from its founder on MSN.
There's no doubt that, probably from the days of Shirley Temple onward, fame hasn't been particularly kind to child stars. And hoo boy, neither is Ms. Brockenbrough.
I understand her frustration with the starlet phenomenon; what I don't see is what this essay was meant to do about it. Is there a thinking person out there who hasn't noticed the weird dichotomy between sexing up tweens and promoting purity-ball-type culture? And is there a thinking person who thinks it's a good idea to say that a young girl about whose mental well-being you purport to be concerned is "dressed like a hooker convention"? (What, a whole one?)
So, shame on Ms. Brockenbrough. Shame on anyone who thinks that a young girl is really trying to attract overt sexual attention when she wants "grown-up" clothes. And shame on anyone who still thinks TV and broader cultural activities cannot exist in the same person's life. I never thought I'd say this, but there are some things the ability to use "whom" properly just cannot cancel out.
In an essay in I'm A Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson lamented owning a spell checker on his computer that suggested "rainware" as an alternate spelling for "Renoir."
And every time I think I'm done with the language posting, someone throws another dry, dry stick on the bonfire.
Britney Spears turns herself into police
Someone got PAID for that. Of course, they got paid for this, too.
I never really intended all these recent posts to be spelling/grammar/punctuation-related; maybe finding nice sites like The Engine Room has rubbed off on me.
But yesterday's news broke the story of a superfluous "not" in an Arkansas law that allows little kids to get married, provided they aren't pregnant:
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- An error in a new law that allows Arkansans of any age -- even toddlers -- to marry with parental consent must be fixed by lawmakers, not an independent commission authorized to correct typos, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Something about the idea of "an independent commission authorized to correct typos" is utterly endearing. And there are few things (okay, maybe not) sadder than a bunch of proofreader-types thwarted in their work. Stupid judge.
Nor is this the only Arkansas-related typo story to make the news this year: in spring 2007, a lawmaker filed a resolution to make the official possessive of Arkansas "Arkansas's." This was simultaneously inspiring and sad. Inspiring, of course, because politicians rarely seem to take an interest in such details, and the South particularly has an undeserved reputation for illiteracy* that should rightly be combatted at every turn. Sad, of course, because the five zillion grammar books currently available should tell any interested person that the possessive of Arkansas should be "Arkansas's," but people are so uninterested that the only way to cut back on error is to make it THE LAW.
*"Undeserved" mainly because the rest of you also tend to be pretty darned illiterate. Yes, I'm afraid so.
Misplaced Modifier Madness! From a Yahoo! story about a Christie's auction:
Now part of a diamond, ruby and pearl necklace, France's last queen gave a bag of pearls and diamonds to Lady Sutherland, the British ambassador's wife, before she fled revolutionary France in 1792, a year before Marie Antoinette's death.
And I thought getting beheaded was about the worst that could happen to her.
I was initially quite happy to find this piece on Language Log discussing the idea that active verbs actually fire up the parts of the brain responsible for movement. Finally! I thought. An explanation why grading student essays used to bring me close to brain-death! Passive verbs cost lives!
Of course, it turns out that this was a sort of misunderstanding of a study that showed that action verbs, not merely active, made the neurons all zippy.
I recently saw a local moving business show its enthusiam (and its ass, as far as punctuation goes) with a sign that began:
