Holy verbiage Grammar Man! I missed National Grammar Day?! How the heck did that happen? I hope they don't make me give my Grammar Nazi card back.
Oh, the blogs I could have blogged in honor of this day! I have scads of material on apostrophe abuse, run-on sentences, subject-verb agreement, the poor misunderstood adverb, mangled Latin, et al!
Why, just this week, I added three new misused idioms to my collection. I mean, you could get a whole blog's worth of material from "for all intensive purposes" or "balling my eyes out" or "with baited breath". That's Grammar Nazi gold, right there!
That's not even to mention my award-winning treatise: "They're, Their, There" and its sequel, "Your stupid! My stupid what?"
Ah, well. I guess it will all have to wait until next year.
To atone for my big grammar blog FAIL ... I humbly encourage you, gentle reader, to visit the National Grammar Day Blog.
Are there grammar errors that makes you cringe? Do share!
Well, there's the fact that you used the wrong form of "its". ;-)
ReplyDeleteAh, there's that poor and much maligned apostrophe again.
ReplyDeleteI'll let you in on my deep, dark secret:
The possessive "its" is one of my two grammatical Achilles' Heels. My brain knows there is no apostrophe, but my treacherous right pinky finger tries to sneak one in there every stinkin' time!
Thanks for the catch. :)
I love you and all your grammar Nazi tendencies! Hilarious! You gots some good brains in yer skull.
ReplyDeleteI am a former third grade teacher so I am hard wired to look for errors. I am trying to let it go, though. Figure correcting people doesn't make me too popular. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI blame Professors Tucker and Flynn from my college days for drilling this grammar ninja-ness into my skull. :)
ReplyDeleteAs for public corrections, yes. As much as my fingers itch to whip out my red pen and edit billboards, menus, web sites, traffic signs, flyers, etc. ... It's best to exercise restraint. :)
But, since part of my profession includes writing and editing ... It's damn near impossible for me to turn off my internal copyeditor entirely. :)
Wow, how had I never heard of this before. Odd that I would be so anal about grammar after having never graduated high school because I kept flunking out of English.
ReplyDeleteBe that as it may, I thank you for making me aware and am adding it to my calendar. :)
In return I'll share a podcast that you may not yet be aware of. I love it! Grammar Girl
Jeannie
Oh wise grammar Nazi, please tell me have the rules for when to use "I" and "me" changed since I was in school?
ReplyDeleteI just can not accept that there are so many people out there saying things like "It was given to John and I", when shouldn't it be "It was given to John and me"?
Maybe I missed the memo while living in Germany.
Ooooh. Thanks Jeannie! I'll check that out ASAP. :)
ReplyDeleteMichaela, I, have a theory that those folks suffer from subject/object displacement disease. You don't even want to get me started on who/whom. :)