Sticklers Unite!

While I'm consolidating on other fronts...

2009-10-04T10:31:00.004-05:00

...I don't think I can bear to let this blog die. It's just too much fun.

So, for anyone who might still be reading, check out The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Then take a look at Apostrophe Abuse. Good stuff.

The Ill-Used Apostrophe

2008-05-28T16:35:00.002-05:00

On a "For Rent" sign I saw today: the owner requested...

"No Pet's"

No pet's what? What are they not supposed to own if you rent this apartment?

Word of the Day

2008-04-01T19:35:00.003-05:00

For your vocabulary-enriching and Scrabble-winning pleasure:

Big A. Little a. What begins with A?

AA n rough, cindery lava

In a Word: No!

2007-12-30T15:55:00.000-06:00

I suppose the title of this post should be "In The Word: No!"

A terrible sentence that has derailed my reading of a what might have been a promising article in the December 2007 issue of The Word magazine:

The list includes, but is not limited to, what, when, where and how much will my kid eat, to what and how much will my kid wear, to who are my kid's friends, to what time and how much will my kid sleep, to what will his or her grades be in school, and on and on and on.

There are so many things wrong with this sentence: I don't know where to begin. But I suppose one must begin somewhere. First, then, the sentence is much too long and there are too many commas to have excluded semicolons. Second, it seems the writer (or editor?) took seriously the rule to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition; however, apparently he does not have any idea which phrases actually require them and which do not. And third, "to who are my kid's friends" has two errors: "to who" should be "to whom" -- or, even better, "with whom" -- and "kid's" should be "kids" since "to who(m)" fills the possessive function. Except, on further inspection of the sentence, "kid's" shouldn't even be attempting to be plural in the first place because the rest of the sentence is talking about one "kid," so this item in the list should follow suit.

Here is my reworking:

The list includes, but is not limited to: what, when, where, and how much will my kid eat; what and how much will my kid wear; with whom is my kid friends; to what time and how much will my kid sleep; what will his or her grades be in school; and on and on and on.

Much better. Now that that is off my chest I can continue reading the article.

Or, I could if I could figure out why the first paragraph or two of this post is double-spaced and the rest is single-spaced. ARGH!

A Wonderful Book

2007-12-10T08:18:00.002-06:00

I may be a little behind the times in anouncing this to the world; however, Ms. Lynne Truss has given us a wonderful book. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is hilarious, informative, inspiring, and, above all, permission to unleash my Inner Stickler! This will be my platform to muse on grammar and punctuation; to display the signage horrors I have witnessed; to commune with others who understand the fury created in seeing these things (my husband does not have this reaction). Let's begin with an example I saw yesterday while driving: "New City Builder's." I'm sorry, but New City Builder's what?

My husband did not get as worked up as I did: "Yeah, people just don't think about it." But they shouldn't have to think! It should be automatic to leave out that meaningless apostrophe. I honestly thought the sign was not finished until I realized that this is exactly what Ms. Truss is pointing out it her book. Therefore, I echo her cry: Sticklers Unite! Come, help me pick up the shards of our broken language and attempt to write (especially here on the internet) in a way that is legible to people over the age of 25 -- in a way that is edifying and inspires the reader to write better themselves. Let us be a light to the literary darkness of the internet!