I’m a grammar snob. I try to hide it, but it just leaks to the surface
sometimes.
Small parts of me feel that I am justified in my demand for better grammar, though. In fact, flagrant abuses of punctuation marks are so rampant that we as a society must unite in crushing the misusage. Specifically, I’ve noticed that people often eliminate the apostrophe. This makes the possessive case sad because it is not properly
acknowledged. For instance, I’ll see signs for Sams Diner. How many Sams are there? Did it mean Sam’s Diner or Sams’ Diner? Now the world will never know. There’s also the ever enigmatic Ruth’s Chris Steak House. I don’t think anyone really understands what that restaurant title is trying to say, but have apostrophes been omitted? Is it Ruth’s Chris’ Steak House? Sometimes I just want to take out a pen and write the apostrophe in for
people, but I don’t, as that would make me a nerd. And I’m not a nerd. I’m not.
If people under-use the apostrophe, then they over-use quotation marks. Advertisements often quote words, and I’m not sure they understand the purpose of the quotation mark. For instance, I’ve seen advertisements saying: Call for a “free” quote. Does that mean the quote isn’t actually free? One of my favorites is: We promise you“the best” service. Hmm. Does this mean mediocre service is the most I can hope for?
One more disturbing spoken trend is the misuse of the word literally. This means that something actually happened, but I’ll hear someone say, “I am literally going to kill him.” Whoa. That’s disturbing. Should I tell
someone? Or here’s another: “I laughed so hard right now that I literally just peed my pants.” Yikes. Should I, um, drop you off at home then so you can change? Are you sure you still want to go to dinner and a movie?
Then there are those who print the sideways happy face. I’m not against the sideways happy face when people are emailing because that is the only way to create a happy face using computer keys. When people are printing with pen and paper, however, why do they draw the happy face sideways? Are they pretending to be a computer? If so, is anyone falling for this impersonation? Or maybe it’s a “happy face.”
I’m also against lengthy acronyms. Simple, easily discernible ones are okay, such as TTYL or TTFN. Those
are both guessable. Someone once emailed me TYGMFTI. What does that mean? I like word puzzles, but there’s this rampant assumption that people can type only the first letter of every word in the sentence, and that will somehow translate to English. Did she mean this: Take your guesses, my friends, & translate it? (Give up? It was actually “thought you guys might find this interesting.”)
I once read a story in a magazine that proved acronyms have gotten out of control. A grandmother, when saying farewell to her grandson who’d joined the military, wrote, “Hope you are safe in Iraq! LOL!” She didn’t realize that LOL doesn’t stand for “lots of love.”
A part of me worries about writing this article because what if it has a grammar error I missed? I’d look pretty foolish then. I’m lying though. I’m not really worried about that. At all. How could I be? My grammar conceit is limitless. (But, now that I’ve admitted that, the editors will be extra thorough when they check this, right?)
Sometimes people, who know I’m an English teacher, apologize for their grammar and say that they hope I’m not making mental notes about any of their grammatical errors. And I laugh and say, “Of course not!” But then I mentally add that I’m not noting their poor grammar unless they do something unforgivable like omit apostrophes or use unnecessary quotes or make “a lot” one word. I don’t like that either. So it’s fine. People can write whatever they want. I hardly notice. I’m not grading it or anything. But it would probably get a C—if I was grading it, that is, which I’m not.
sometimes.
Small parts of me feel that I am justified in my demand for better grammar, though. In fact, flagrant abuses of punctuation marks are so rampant that we as a society must unite in crushing the misusage. Specifically, I’ve noticed that people often eliminate the apostrophe. This makes the possessive case sad because it is not properly
acknowledged. For instance, I’ll see signs for Sams Diner. How many Sams are there? Did it mean Sam’s Diner or Sams’ Diner? Now the world will never know. There’s also the ever enigmatic Ruth’s Chris Steak House. I don’t think anyone really understands what that restaurant title is trying to say, but have apostrophes been omitted? Is it Ruth’s Chris’ Steak House? Sometimes I just want to take out a pen and write the apostrophe in for
people, but I don’t, as that would make me a nerd. And I’m not a nerd. I’m not.
If people under-use the apostrophe, then they over-use quotation marks. Advertisements often quote words, and I’m not sure they understand the purpose of the quotation mark. For instance, I’ve seen advertisements saying: Call for a “free” quote. Does that mean the quote isn’t actually free? One of my favorites is: We promise you“the best” service. Hmm. Does this mean mediocre service is the most I can hope for?
One more disturbing spoken trend is the misuse of the word literally. This means that something actually happened, but I’ll hear someone say, “I am literally going to kill him.” Whoa. That’s disturbing. Should I tell
someone? Or here’s another: “I laughed so hard right now that I literally just peed my pants.” Yikes. Should I, um, drop you off at home then so you can change? Are you sure you still want to go to dinner and a movie?
Then there are those who print the sideways happy face. I’m not against the sideways happy face when people are emailing because that is the only way to create a happy face using computer keys. When people are printing with pen and paper, however, why do they draw the happy face sideways? Are they pretending to be a computer? If so, is anyone falling for this impersonation? Or maybe it’s a “happy face.”
I’m also against lengthy acronyms. Simple, easily discernible ones are okay, such as TTYL or TTFN. Those
are both guessable. Someone once emailed me TYGMFTI. What does that mean? I like word puzzles, but there’s this rampant assumption that people can type only the first letter of every word in the sentence, and that will somehow translate to English. Did she mean this: Take your guesses, my friends, & translate it? (Give up? It was actually “thought you guys might find this interesting.”)
I once read a story in a magazine that proved acronyms have gotten out of control. A grandmother, when saying farewell to her grandson who’d joined the military, wrote, “Hope you are safe in Iraq! LOL!” She didn’t realize that LOL doesn’t stand for “lots of love.”
A part of me worries about writing this article because what if it has a grammar error I missed? I’d look pretty foolish then. I’m lying though. I’m not really worried about that. At all. How could I be? My grammar conceit is limitless. (But, now that I’ve admitted that, the editors will be extra thorough when they check this, right?)
Sometimes people, who know I’m an English teacher, apologize for their grammar and say that they hope I’m not making mental notes about any of their grammatical errors. And I laugh and say, “Of course not!” But then I mentally add that I’m not noting their poor grammar unless they do something unforgivable like omit apostrophes or use unnecessary quotes or make “a lot” one word. I don’t like that either. So it’s fine. People can write whatever they want. I hardly notice. I’m not grading it or anything. But it would probably get a C—if I was grading it, that is, which I’m not.
