Maddenation
Grammatickitis
I don’t know if this is a “Madden disease,” but I sure have it. I cannot abide bad grammar. By “bad grammar,” I mean more than grammar per se. I mean non-parallel sentences, ambiguous meaning brought on by misuse of commas or by dangling modifiers, that sort of thing. For example, I was just half-watching a Travel Channel show on the hidden parts of Yellowstone. The narrator was talking about a ferry that sank on Yellowstone Lake nearly a century ago. She said, “Made in the same year as that ill-fated cruise liner [the Titanic], people on board were…” The people were made in the same year as the Titanic!? What was this, a special lake cruise for people born between October 1911 and September 1912? By “made” are we to understand “conceived”? And I find it all the time.
How about a John Kerry campaign slogan: “Stronger at Home, Respected in the World.” Is there no copywriter available to say, “You really should make those parallel: either “strong” at home or “more respected” in the world.” I mean, seriously! Oh, I suppose it’s a subtle dig at Bush having “eroded the respect of the United States in the world” or something. But come on! I seriously would have preferred the strange “respecteder” over the way this currently is. And how about the non-parallelism of “at home” and “in the world.” My new, improved Kerry slogan (done without a million-dollar budget) is “Stronger Inside, Respecteder Outside.” I’m sure if he had that, he’d win.
It drives me nuts when I could do the job better than the person who got paid big money to do it. Documentary producers! Campaign sloganeers! I’m available, and I’m way better than the hacks you’ve been paying up to now!
p.s. I am grading student papers this weekend. Thus the hypersensitivity. I’ll add more examples in the comments as they assault me (though probably not from student papers).
Patrick • Observations • 10/03/04 • 13 comments
Comments
Dad • 10/03/04 • 12:51 PM:How about: “John Kerry—for a strong America respected abroad.”
Or: “George Bush—for a dominant America feared abroad.”
Regarding those people on the Yellowstone ferry, if small businesses had given them jobs after they were grown , then maybe they would have survived.
Dad • 10/04/04 • 10:00 PM:I understand your irritation over the bad grammar that is prevalent in our society, but I think you need to lighten up. The situations where you truly can’t figure out what the writer (I won’t call him an author) meant are rare. Even the funny ads and notices Jay Leno reads on his show are intelligible, in the sense that you know what was meant.
Don’t get me wrong. Improving writing and communication should be a major goal of our society, not the least because shoddy writing usually reflects shoddy thinking. However, advertisers and campaign advisors (pretty smart/shrewd people) figured out long ago how to use words effectively. John Kerry’s slogan is really a shortened form of, “John Kerry: he’ll be stronger than George Bush in promoting our economy here at home, and he’s more respected abroad, where Bush has botched up our foreign policy.”
David • 10/06/04 • 4:16 PM:Here’s an actual email (and my response) from my good buddy and department chair. He’s a great dude, and very smart - so even intelligent people make grammatical mistakes.
He wrote:
I would like to invite you all to lunch next Friday during 5th when I will have a guest speaker, a naturalist from Brazil who works with primates here at school to talk to classes in the theater. Kathy, I’ll stop in and talk to you about how you arrange those lunches for research and Sam Rhine. If anyone has any special dietary requests, veggy etc. please let me know. If you would like to bring any of your classes to the theater for any of the periods, just let me know. I am putting the list of social studies. Language and science teachers together.
john
I wrote:
She works with primates here at school??!!
That’s nuts.
Which ones? The sophomores?
When I pointed this out to him he gave me this bug website.
AJ • 10/11/04 • 1:51 PM:I think the error in the actual email could be one of just punctuation. A comma after primates may make the sentence correct. I’m no expert though, so consult with Patrick on this. He also messes up his punctuation several other times, so it was probably a quick e-mail.
There is something wrong with a prepared statement, sign, slogan, or narrative that is prepared incorrectly. It shows poor planning and gives poor results. For instance if there are proof reading mistakes in something Janet is reading, she won’t be able to pay attention to what it is saying she is so annoyed by the bad grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.
Even if Kerry’s slogan is shortened you’re missing Pat’s point. The ‘more’ needs to be included to keep the thought cohesive or “parallel.”
Maybe a period instead of a comma would fix that slogan. :)
Either way, Pat you need to lighten up because I’m sure you could do any given job better than just about most people. That’s no reason to hate that person or the job they’re doing. After all, you’re not doing it, but you could…
Try to develop a new slogan for yourself like, “People are dumb. It’s funny.” Maybe make a category on Maddenation.
Patrick • 10/11/04 • 2:14 PM:Yes, a comma after “primates” would make the sentence grammatically correct. People are taught that commas are for pauses. That’s not true. Commas affect meaning. Here, correct commas would cast the phrase “a naturalist from Brazil who works with primates” into the role of a non-restrictive clause (supplemental information about the “speaker”), which means you can take it out without losing the sentence’s essence. Then the phrase “here at school” tags onto “speaker” instead of “primates.”
As for doing people’s jobs better than they do, it’s not so much like “I could teach that guy’s class better” or “I could run that checkout faster.” It’s more when I think that someone got paid a buttload of money to come up with a slogan or an advertisement, and I could have done better in my freetime if they had only asked me (and paid me just half). It’s inefficiency. And wondering how people get jobs where they do crap and still get paid. Maybe that’s some jealousy too, since I need money. I don’t hate the hacks who’re getting my money. I just think they should be earning what I earn while I earn what they earn.
David • 10/13/04 • 2:39 PM:It just so happens that Dave Barry’s article this week, “A Tall Order, Grammatically” takes a funny look at grammar. In the process it makes fun of Starbucks and the coffee boom, and even GMC’s slogan.
Mr. A • 10/28/04 • 5:12 PM:Forget all that sophisticated stuff about commas. I’d have been happy if college-bound junior and seniors could distinguish “its” from “it’s” and flourine and clorine from fluorine and chlorine. I always considered a student who used paragraphs to be just a step below Einstein, and one who could draw a conclusion and support it with facts to be on a par with the great man himself, and about as rare. Most of the time errors were just a matter of not bothering to check, which made them even more annoying. I attribute it to the LA classes where the grade was A+ and thank you for sharing your thoughts and here’s your smiley face sticker and I’m glad your feelings don’t have to be hurt by any criticism of your abominable writing.
A classic occurred early in my career at WP. We had a Director of Guidance named Len Contarino (about as swarthy,and about a humorless, as humanly possible). Student schedules with gaps in them were labeled “no class” for the given period. Len sent out the famous memo “Students who have a no class should report to ……..”. He never did get over the ribbing he took and the pseudo-italian accents that were used in his presence. Of course I personally never did anything like that.
Mr. Paulsen was the best-known for correcting the illiterate. He would slash up administrative memos and directives with his red pencil and post them in the faculty room. A few of the higher-ups actually attempted, with limited success, to improve their communications as a result.
Be resigned to the fact that there are darn few people who can like express, ya know, a coherent thought. Ya know what I mean, dude?
Patrick • 10/28/04 • 11:29 PM:This is why Mr. A and I are still on the same wavelength even though I gave up the physics and studied English! You know what? Of all the writing instruction I ever had in grade school, middle school, and high school, only ONE little bit has stuck with me overtly (I’m sure I learned things subconsciously, but one moment is clear). It was from Mr. A. I had written in a lab report of some kind about how our “expiriment” had gone. Mr. A’s scribbled comment (I can still see the image of his handwriting!) was not any direct instruction like, “You’ve misspelled this word,” or “it’s experiment.” No, not Mr. A. He wrote:
And that was it! It took me a second to figure out what he meant, but once I did, I loved it! And I didn’t feel offended that he was poking fun at my expense. You know what? That comment has probably shaped my thinking and grading style (which some students absolutely loathe!) immensely. I think I’ll write an essay about this. At the very least, I can put it in my teaching portfolio to explain why I’m such a drill sergeant when it comes to comments on student papers. I am never afraid of writing stuff like “Bleh” or “Whuh?” or “Fluff” or sometimes more clever comments, based on the situation.
Mr. A • 10/29/04 • 5:11 PM:I once had a rubber stamp that said “HORSESHIT,” but never the nerve to use it the way it was really needed. (Can I say that on Maddenation? If not, I apologize, but I’d have to protest that the rule is H@®$#$!‡)
David • 10/30/04 • 4:35 PM:Mr. A. - can you send me that stamp?
Why can’t people spell ‘experiment’? Happens in my class all the time.
I often put ‘less-than-well-received’ comments on papers. I guess it’s contageous. Did I also learn it from Mr. A.? My favorite of all time (the student’s least favorite, I’m sure) - was when I commented, “No need write like caveman!” on a paper. It totally cracked me up, and became an ACE classic. He didn’t like me much after that. And to him I say - toughen up!
Patrick • 11/11/04 • 1:00 PM:I just saw a Lexus billboard with the slogan “Your Amenities Runneth Over.”
Now I know we’re not living in the Middle Ages anymore, but you’d think one copywriter or editor somewhere would know that runneth is a singular form of the verb to run and, therefore, cannot be used with the plural amenities. Sheesh!
And while you’re at it, why not use thy instead of your? Or better yet, thine (since it leads into a vowel-beginning word, similar to a and an). Hello, Lexus? Pay ME! I can do it better than the cranks you’ve got!
Here, by the way, is the origin of the phrase, from the famous 23rd Psalm:
1] The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Patrick • 11/11/04 • 8:56 PM:2] He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3] He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4] Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5] Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6] Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
And another thing: it makes sense to create a metaphor of a cup overflowing with blessings or oil or what have you, but how in the heck does this mean anything when you’re talking about amenities? What are they running over? What are they in? What are they? Is this something tangible we’re talking about?
Overall, I give the Lexus marketing department an F- on this campaign. Just because of their stupidity, I’m not gonna buy a Lexus.
A new slogan, which I’ll give away free to Lexus:
Dad • 11/15/04 • 11:46 AM:Is the plural of runneth, “runseth”?
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
Please capitalize your name properly and use the same information each time you comment. We will not send you spam, and your email address will not be posted.