The Grammar Vandal

I just discovered this story and I had to share it with you.  Every word begins with the letter W!

The story is called “Walter & Winnie” and it was published in the 19th century by an unknown author.

Here’s how it begins:

“Warm weather, Walter! Welcome warm weather! We were wishing winter would wane, weren’t we?” “We were well wearied with waiting,” whispered Waiter wearily. Wan, white, woe-begone was Walter; wayward, wilful, worn with weakness, wasted, waxing weaker whenever winter’s wild, withering winds were wailing. Wholly without waywardness was Winifred, Walter’s wise, womanly watcher, who, with winsome, wooing way, was well-beloved.

Click here for more, if your eyes and brain can stand it.

I’ve become a big fan of the Bumper Sticker application on Facebook.  With this application, you can send “stickers” to your friends, and they end up displayed on their profiles.  (And thanks to those of you who have already sent me grammar-oriented stickers!)

Of course, since most of them are homemade, they’re often filled with errors.  I’ve come to expect that.

And then I saw this one:

Oh, sweet Jesus.

Are we serious here?  Are we really, truly serious?

Or is this some kind of elaborate joke?  Is the joke that there are so many errors in it, on purpose, that this is the ultimate “gotcha” by the creator?

If it were a joke to those of us in the know, then I would gladly add this sticker to my profile.

For now, though, it’s staying far, far away.

Tell me — do you think that this was done on purpose to joke about people with bad spelling and grammar?

Or do you think that the creator was serious and just made the mistakes without thinking?

I can’t even tell!

Last November, we had a discussion on text messaging and how grammar plays into what you do.  Everyone seems to have a decisive opinion on just how much of a role grammar should play in texting.

For me, personally, I try to be as correct as possible, including capitalization, but I’ll occasionally use an abbreviation like BRB or LOL, and I hate to say this, but when I want to appear “breezy” (as in when I’m talking to a guy I like or something equally pathetic), I’ll leave punctuation off the end.

While I was in Vegas, I twittered everything I did, and since I didn’t have computer access, I did it by texting.

On Sunday night, I sent the worst text message of all time.  It had been a long and crazy night, seeing Cirque du Soleil’s The Beatles LOVE, dinner at the Grand Lux at the Venetian, checking out the Palazzo and the Wynn, dancing at Tryst at the Wynn, going to the after-hours club Drai’s at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall, and then walking all the way back to T.I., where we stayed, and playing blackjack unil 7:30 AM.

I can’t believe I actually wrote this message.

Here it is, and I am not exaggerating it in any way:

Wait — oh, no!  It deleted a lot of my old ones.  Anyway, the tweets were along the lines of TRYST IS THE BEST MOTHERF—— CLUB TO WHICH I HAVE EVER BEEN, MOTHAF—-!, perfect in their grammar (if using a slang form of spelling!), and then I texted this gem at 4:32 AM:

At local after club Drai’s and nmt paying for a cent because i am the motherfucking afterrclub of vegas

And then this beauty at 5:37 AM:

Dudd. we are sthll up and it is f——  awake.  me officially have left the aeater party at the ip.

I still can’t believe I considered that to be verbally coherent.  We have reached a new low.  There is literally nowhere lower to go.

Also — I would like to wish a very happy birthday to faithful reader furrperson.  I hope your day is fantastic!

I hate unnecessary commas.  It seems like they’re used all the time, often after a name.  Take this example that I just read on People.com:

For years, Christie Brinkley has thrown a big bash for daughter Sailor’s, summertime birthday – and this year was no different, even with her legal showdown with soon-to-be ex-hubby Peter Cook looming next week.

Yech.

Just take it out.  It never should have been there.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  I’m going to look for more…

I am lucky to be alive after my epic weekend in Vegas.

My friend Alexa already posted some of her pictures, so here’s one of them:

That’s my friend Lisa and me at the Venetian before our night at Tao.

In a nutshell:

It was crazy.  We ate at Isla, Tao, Le Village and the Burger Bar (ironic for me and Lisa, the vegetarians, but they had great veggie burgers!), plus the amazing buffet at TI (Treasure Island), where we stayed.  We partied at Pure, Tao, Tryst and Drai’s.  We saw Cirque du Soleil’s LOVE (the Beatles show) and Chippendales.  We posed inappropriately with nearly every wax statue at Madame Tussaud’s, where I got stuck inside Frank Sinatra for a few minutes.

The clubs were fantastic, especially Tryst (I swear, all you need to do is make fleeting eye contact with a guy with bottle service and he’ll start pouring you a drink before you say anything).  I had VIP contacts for everywhere we went, and our VIP hosts were great, especially our host at Pure, who was such a great guy.

Lisa and I actually met Sherri Shepherd from The View at Chippendales on Sunday!  We got a great pic with her.  I actually told her that her body was bangin’ (which it is — she has lost a ton of weight and looks fantastic).

We also saw Randy Jackson at Tao, where he was celebrating his birthday, and we saw DJ AM at Pure.  We also saw one of the guys from the TBS show My Boys outside the Venetian, but we couldn’t place him at the time, so we just stared and whispered until we found him on IMDB the next day.

I also spent WAY, WAY too much money.  Playing blackjack at 7:30 AM after a night out at Tryst and Drai’s isn’t the smartest idea.

Now I have to go to bed and go to work in a few hours, so I will be back to catch up on everything later!

I’m going to Vegas this weekend! I’m so excited because I’ve never been, though I sent my clients at my last job there so often that I feel like I know the city like the back of my hand.

I’m going with my friends Lisa and Alexa, plus Alexa’s boyfriend, Grant. If you read my personal blog, Kate’s Adventures, you’ve likely seen some amusing stories about us, especially Lisa. (Check out the Bar-Hopping category!)

We’re staying at a great resort on the Strip; we’re partying at Body English, Tao and Tryst; we’re seeing Cirque du Soleil’s LOVE and, um, Chippendales; we’re eating some fantastic food and lounging by the pool; and I will be playing Blackjack like crazy, since I’m still on my high from winning $92.50 in six hands at Foxwoods a few months ago!

I plan on Twittering like crazy via phone. If you’re on Twitter, be sure to follow me — my name is AdventurousKate on there. If you’re not, you should join! I was initially apprehensive about joining, but now I’m obsessed with its greatness. Even if you’re not a member, though, you can see my page.

I’ll be back at 12:35 AM on Wednesday morning. And then I’m working the next day.

And then I’m being interviewed by a national publication for a feature on crazy grammarians like us.  I’m taking down another ritzy Boston neighborhood this time!

Have a great weekend (Bostonians: enjoy the Celtics celebrations!), and I’ll be back on Wednesday, hopefully armed with a memory card full of grammatical errors from Sin City.

Until then, check out the Sexy Can I punctuation contest below!

I enjoyed your corrections to “Everything is super when you don’t you think I look cute in this hat?” so much that I’ve got a new one for you.

Let’s try this sentence, a gem of a lyric from singer and amateur porn star Ray-J’s hit song and McCulley favorite, “Sexy Can I”:

Sexy can I just pardon my manners girl how you shake it got a player like oh

Man, I love that song.

How would you punctuate it?

There seem to be a lot of possibilities…

The winner will get a chance to plug his or her favorite thing on this blog, whether it be the winner’s own blog or anything else!

Let’s see what we’ve got!

All I wanna know is — SEXY CAN I?

Look what I just found at one of my new favorite sites, Pundit Kitchen:

Can you believe it?

What makes this even more ridiculous is that the test to become an American citizen is so difficult.  It draws not only on the English language, but also on extensive history, geography and government.  Even college-educated people would have difficulty passing it without studying.

All in all, it’s a lot more difficult than spelling the word amnesty!

I received quite the loaded question from reader Sara.

It turns out that Hanes is now selling a T-shirt with the brand name LAY FLAT COLLAR.

Well, now.

Does the collar lie? Or do we lay it down?

I think we’ve had this discussion on here before.

You use the word lay when someone places an object or puts it down.

Before you go to bed, please lay out your clothes for the next day.

You use the word lie when the subject reclines…

I lie in bed for a long time on Saturday mornings.

However, it starts getting complicated when you get into the past tense.

Here’s a brief overview:

If we’re talking about placing:

I lay my clothes out the night before.

I laid my clothes out last night.

I’ve laid my clothes out every night since I was eight years old.

If we’re talking about reclining:

I lie in bed for a long time on Saturday mornings.

I lay in bed for a long time last Saturday.

I’ve lain for 30 minutes so far.

Good times.

Anyway, Sara told me that Hanes shirt features a LAY FLAT COLLAR.

So, who lays the collar?  Does the collar lay itself?  In that case, it would lie, not lay.

I think that Hanes means that the shirt

I can see why Hanes wouldn’t be thrilled with the word lie.  In addition to most of the population confusing these two words, the word lie has a negative connotation.  That probably wouldn’t be the best way to sell undergarments.

Hanes, if you come across this entry, I hope you change your ways.  I doubt it, but I hope that you do.

I’m not counting on it.

Thanks, Sara.

I received a great submission from reader Sarah.  Check this out:

(I’m assuming that she changed the license plate.)

I’m sure this is an incident that makes all of us grammarians smile.  There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing someone being a bit of an ass, then making such a grievous error.

It’s great ammunition, I find.  You probably won’t call the person out on it (not unless you get into some kind of screaming match and release it in a fit of anger), but you can keep it in the back of your mind, just in case.

It makes you smile.

It makes me smile.

Have you ever called someone out on his or her grammar skills while in the middle of an argument?  I’m not sure that I have, but it definitely HAS been done to me.  But that is another post for another time.

I just saw this on the Fail Blog and thought you would enjoy:

Wow.

Just wow.

Okay — your responses cracked me up.

If you would like to hear the original version of Big Gay Al’s “I’m Super” from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, check out this video.  (I couldn’t find the original film clip on YouTube, so this is the next best thing.)  Fast-forward to 0:25 if you want to hear the line.

I did say that I would announce a winner, so here goes:

“Everything is super when you — don’t you think I look cute in this hat?”

Big Gay Al, in the heat of the moment, gets interrupted by his thoughts mid-sentence, leading to an entirely different outburst.

I’ll give props to the winners, Ryan and Alexa, who echoed my thoughts exactly.

Ryan writes Megorious, which is a really great blog, filled with politics, movies, amusing incidents and the like.  He is also the second person ever to successfully RickRoll me.

I’ll be honest about Alexa’s blog, Alexa Shrugged.  I do like it — except for the political parts, which is to be expected, as we have very different political views.  Though her blog has mostly been about politics lately, I love her entries featuring Overheard in New York quotes and updates on Knut the bear.

I also have to admit that after listening to the song, it looks like I got a word wrong.  The actual words are, “Everything is super when you’re — don’t you think I look cute in this hat?”

That may have impacted some of the entries.

Well, either way, I hope you enjoy the song in the clip!

I have an idea.  I’ve had Big Gay Al’s “I’m Super” (from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut) stuck in my head all day, so I’d like to do something with it on the blog.

I’d like to see if you can do the impossible — perfectly punctuate an insanely written sentence, while keeping it one sentence.  No cheating!

Here it is:

“Everything is super when you don’t you think I look cute in this hat”

How would YOU do it?

I’m trying to think of a prize I can offer…the only thing I can think of is plugging your blog and getting you into any club in Las Vegas.

Furthermore, where did B.G.A. get his matching tie?  I always thought it was Bob’s, though some of the lyrics online say Vogue and some say Merv’s.

Happy punctuating — and to my fellow Yanks, have a great Memorial Day weekend!

When I originally switched to WordPress, one of my goals was to start blogging ahead of time, so I could write a post on Tuesday night and have it posted on Thursday at around 10:30 PM, around the time when I usually post.  That’s because I usually go out on Thursdays.

I don’t think there will be too much of value in terms of posts tonight.  The photo uploader is giving me problems today, and we all know that photos are the cornerstone of this blog.

At any rate, I think it’s worth telling a story from my friend, Beth, who currently lives in Texas but is a Massachusetts native, like me, and recently spent time at home.

She stopped by the Linens-N-Things in our hometown, Reading.  She then spotted an egregious error on an advertisement.

She took a few pictures for me with her cell phone.  (Thought I’ve had my cell phone for well over two years — I’m thinking of getting an iPhone this summer once the new model comes out — I still haven’t figured out how to send picture messages to my email.)

On the advertisements for Linens-N-Things, they listed a word of which I had never heard.

Afterall.

As in, “It’s time for you to buy some dishes, afterall.”

Or, “We need to buy a rice cooker and an omelette cooker to fool all of our houseguests, afterall.”

AFTERALL is not a word, last time I checked, Linens-N-Things.

How could you be so ignorant?

Is nobody checking your work?

Come on, now.  It’s not that hard to run spellcheck.  Hell, if you ran this advertisement in Microsoft Word, originally, you would have the telltale squiggly red line underneath the word!  There is no excuse for spelling the word like that.

I keep worrying…I keep thinking that my efforts are futile…

This is a really good question.  It came to me from reader Bailee?

Dear Kate,
 
There is a subject I am really hoping you could cover for me on your blog, since I’m sure you would do a better job than I would. The topic is singular collective nouns.  I am driven to the point of madness every morning when I listen to my local rock station, because the DJ insists on referring to bands whose names would be a singular collective noun in a plural sense.  For example, she recently said, “Radiohead are releasing a new album.”  Radiohead is a group, and “group” is a singular collective noun. Thus, it should be, “Radiohead is releasing a new album.” She does this all the time, and I am always thinking about writing a letter to her, but I’m sure I wouldn’t explain it very well.  However, I think you would probably do great.
 
Forgive me for any grammar errors in my email, as I’m only a novice grammar Nazi. I hope to hear from you soon.
 
Bailee

Wow.

This is tough.

Let’s start with an example.  The word band can be used as a singular collective noun.  Let’s say, for example, that you had plans to see your favorite band in concert.

1. Singular: My favorite band is in town, so I’m going to see it.
2. Plural: My favorite band are in town, so I’m going to see them.

Neither of those sound right to me, even though they seem to be grammatically correct.

I’m going to turn to the fabulous and useful Language Log.  Here is what the writers had to say on the subject:

Like most Americans, I prefer singular verb agreement for collective nouns like family and committee, unless the meaning of the phrase emphasizes semantic multiplicity, as in “My family all live in North America”. When the meaning is neutral or emphasizes unity, I strongly prefer the singular: “My family is gathering in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving”. However, I can’t imagine writing or saying “#My family is gathering in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, and I’m preparing a traditional Thanksgiving meal for it.” The problem is not that the sentence is ungrammatical, but rather that it doesn’t say what I mean. I prepare the meal for them, not for it.

So, would I say that Pink Floyd is appearing in concert?  Or that Pink Floyd are appearing in concert?

Dear lord.  I think I would say either.  WHAT does that MEAN?!?!

Click here to read the rest of the Language Log’s analysis.  Seeing all those research notes makes me shudder.  It brings back traumatic memories of the 30-page research paper I had to write for my “Understanding the Sacred in Literature” class at Fairfield.

I’ll let them handle the heavy research.

In conclusion, I think that being able to say that your favorite band is in town and you’re going to see them has become so accepted in our language that it has become reality.

As for bands, Bailee, I wish I could answer your question better.  I don’t see anything wrong with saying Radiohead are any more than Radiohead is.

For now, you might want to hold off on that letter to the station.  :-/

And, just because:

DAVID COOK!

YES!!!!!  GO, COOKIE!!!!!  This is the first time that my favorite contestant has won American Idol, so I’m very excited!!  (I haven’t had luck in the past with Clay, Constantine, Elliott and Sanjaya…shut up!!)

Thanks, Bailee.