FREE SPEECH vs BAD GRAMMAR
The latest uproar in the news is over Rep. Steve Cohen's likening free political speech by the opposing party to propaganda, specifically that of the master Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. The problem is that he, and everyone reporting it, says his name like they're mispronouncing gerbils. There's no "r" in his name, but they all say it like there is. They must have borrowed it from the word forward, which most if not all, drop the first "r" saying "fo-ward." Foeward? Is that like, toward your foes? Should we now pronounce its opposite: "ba-ward?"
Another pet peeve here is people, some even lawyers, don't seem to know that the plural of Attorney General is Attorneys General, not Attorney Generals. Likewise more than one Book of Mormon would be Books of Mormon and not Book of Mormons. One sincere Mormon girl gave a copy of that book to a friend of mine writing inside it praising The Book of Morman! Really?!
Aside from mispronunciation and misspelling is just plain bad grammar. Two cases stand out. One is the ever popular 'for free." Free is an adjective, not a noun, so you can't get anything for it any more than you can get something for purple, or for irritated. If something is free, it's for nothing. It is free, for you.
The other is naked or nude pictures or photos. This is widely used. Pictures or photos can't be naked or nude, unless you're possible talking about one that isn't framed under glass! A picture or photo can be of someone who is naked or nude, but is not in and of itself such.
This reminds me of another one that is all-too-common, the exchanging of the word then for than, as in "this rather then that."
This also leads to another one, which I call redundant use of pronouns. It sometimes includes the former in it as well. The choice is "these ones" rather than "those ones," instead of "these" or "those."
Like is another overused word, often used with be, ie. "I be like whatever it is" instead of I'm whatever.
And a common grammar faux pas is saying the word "is" twice in a row. Statements like: "The point is, is that...." are all too common now, esp. by our Dunce in Chief, Obumbler, or Orambler. I thought we'd learned that sounded wrong back when Bill Clinton infamously said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word is is." At least he used it correctly.
As the aforementioned Rep. Cohen's citation of Goerbbels, "repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as fact," say it wrong often enough, and it'll be accepted as correct. My High School English teacher would vehemently disagree.
Another reversal of commonly understood grammar is now making the rounds. It has been commonly understood that you nod your head yes or shake your head no. Now. the reverse seems to be the case; you shake your head yes, and nod your head no. How does anyone figure that to be the case?!
UPDATE: December 4th, 2015
I've decided to treat commercials and news stories with bad grammar/pronunciation as spam and ignore them.
The biggest ones recently are the radio ads for Dinovite and Prevagen. The Dinovite ads feature some of the dumbest women I've ever heard; one talking about the vet charging her hundreds in "Doggie Fees" for seeing her dog (if he sees your cat, does he charge you Kittie Fees?), one claiming the vet had her dog on "antibotics," another claiming she had "pounds and pounds of fur" all over the place (do you realize how much fur it would take to get "pounds and pounds of it?), and yet another who said she and her husband ran a dog kennel where they fed them "very quality" food. A guy on the string of personal testimonies, seemed to enjoy going into gruesome detail about his dog Zelia's puss-oozing sores, just great around breakfast or lunch time.
Prevagen is supposed to improve brain function and memory, but in the Prevagen ad he says: "As we age, we lose proteins that support our brain." What, there's only one brain for everyone? Do we all share a brain? Maybe we pass it around like the three blind witches passed around the eye in Clash of the Titans, or perhaps we all partake in one giant collective brain in which we are each a single neuron. No, as we age, we lose proteins that support our brains. Either this Prevagen isn't working too well for you (so why should we take it?), or you're not taking it, and it shows.
One of the best ways to spot Phishing emails, those spam emails designed to fool you into thinking they're from a bank or online company that you do business with so they can steal your identity, is bad grammar and spelling. Most of these guys seem to hail from Russia and other countries, and don't know how to speak or write English very well at all. (Spellcheck may be helping them a bit with the spelling though, if they bother to use it, which most Americans obviously don't.) That, and the generic "Dear Customer" in stead of "Dear whatever your name is." Most these days don't want to be labeled a "Grammar Nazi," so they "understand what you meant" and will, in all likelihood, give the scammers all the identity-stealing information they want, lest they appear judgmental. I'd rather be labeled a Grammar Nazi, thanks.
Another pet peeve here is people, some even lawyers, don't seem to know that the plural of Attorney General is Attorneys General, not Attorney Generals. Likewise more than one Book of Mormon would be Books of Mormon and not Book of Mormons. One sincere Mormon girl gave a copy of that book to a friend of mine writing inside it praising The Book of Morman! Really?!
Aside from mispronunciation and misspelling is just plain bad grammar. Two cases stand out. One is the ever popular 'for free." Free is an adjective, not a noun, so you can't get anything for it any more than you can get something for purple, or for irritated. If something is free, it's for nothing. It is free, for you.
The other is naked or nude pictures or photos. This is widely used. Pictures or photos can't be naked or nude, unless you're possible talking about one that isn't framed under glass! A picture or photo can be of someone who is naked or nude, but is not in and of itself such.
This reminds me of another one that is all-too-common, the exchanging of the word then for than, as in "this rather then that."
This also leads to another one, which I call redundant use of pronouns. It sometimes includes the former in it as well. The choice is "these ones" rather than "those ones," instead of "these" or "those."
Like is another overused word, often used with be, ie. "I be like whatever it is" instead of I'm whatever.
And a common grammar faux pas is saying the word "is" twice in a row. Statements like: "The point is, is that...." are all too common now, esp. by our Dunce in Chief, Obumbler, or Orambler. I thought we'd learned that sounded wrong back when Bill Clinton infamously said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word is is." At least he used it correctly.
As the aforementioned Rep. Cohen's citation of Goerbbels, "repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as fact," say it wrong often enough, and it'll be accepted as correct. My High School English teacher would vehemently disagree.
Another reversal of commonly understood grammar is now making the rounds. It has been commonly understood that you nod your head yes or shake your head no. Now. the reverse seems to be the case; you shake your head yes, and nod your head no. How does anyone figure that to be the case?!
UPDATE: December 4th, 2015
I've decided to treat commercials and news stories with bad grammar/pronunciation as spam and ignore them.
The biggest ones recently are the radio ads for Dinovite and Prevagen. The Dinovite ads feature some of the dumbest women I've ever heard; one talking about the vet charging her hundreds in "Doggie Fees" for seeing her dog (if he sees your cat, does he charge you Kittie Fees?), one claiming the vet had her dog on "antibotics," another claiming she had "pounds and pounds of fur" all over the place (do you realize how much fur it would take to get "pounds and pounds of it?), and yet another who said she and her husband ran a dog kennel where they fed them "very quality" food. A guy on the string of personal testimonies, seemed to enjoy going into gruesome detail about his dog Zelia's puss-oozing sores, just great around breakfast or lunch time.
Prevagen is supposed to improve brain function and memory, but in the Prevagen ad he says: "As we age, we lose proteins that support our brain." What, there's only one brain for everyone? Do we all share a brain? Maybe we pass it around like the three blind witches passed around the eye in Clash of the Titans, or perhaps we all partake in one giant collective brain in which we are each a single neuron. No, as we age, we lose proteins that support our brains. Either this Prevagen isn't working too well for you (so why should we take it?), or you're not taking it, and it shows.
One of the best ways to spot Phishing emails, those spam emails designed to fool you into thinking they're from a bank or online company that you do business with so they can steal your identity, is bad grammar and spelling. Most of these guys seem to hail from Russia and other countries, and don't know how to speak or write English very well at all. (Spellcheck may be helping them a bit with the spelling though, if they bother to use it, which most Americans obviously don't.) That, and the generic "Dear Customer" in stead of "Dear whatever your name is." Most these days don't want to be labeled a "Grammar Nazi," so they "understand what you meant" and will, in all likelihood, give the scammers all the identity-stealing information they want, lest they appear judgmental. I'd rather be labeled a Grammar Nazi, thanks.
posted by Postmann | 7:01 PM
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