Grammar Gripe of the Week

From Yahoo (r) answers. Just pitiful. First off, it's a dumb question, which sounds like it was written by a teenage kid working on a D.A.R.E. (to keep kids off drugs!) project. Have you got a phrase? No, dillwad. I don't own any phrases. I may KNOW a few phrases. Also, "in courage" is something they would put on a soldier's badge. I think you were going for "encourage." It's called vocabulary. Learn it.

Oh Goody! A typo in the NYTimes!

It probably reflects very poorly on me that I get my kicks from seeing typos in venerable newspapers such as the New York Times. But whatever. I can't help that warm and tingly feeling that creeps up on me when I realize the editors who fill the country's most coveted editorial positions aren't perfect.

So let's celebrate this article, which contains this typo:
Ms. Block went to the company’s Web site and filed an application online, which many others had not. By doing do, her application went directly into the company’s system.

Sounds like something that transpires when my boyfriend is in the bathroom, right?

It's gonna be a good weekend. I can just tell.

Grammar Gripe of the Week

A large part of my job is writing career advice, so I pay attention to all the career advice that's out there. (And there is A LOT of it online. Seriously. When I started my job search I can't believe I didn't just google "resume tips". It would have been extremely smart of me.)

Sometimes, the advice is good. Sometimes it downright sucks. And occasionally I find people who can't write for their lives. I would never take career advice from the person who wrote this, as part of an article about resume mistakes:

1. Ambiguous Job Objective: A career objective is the most important part of the resume. A lot depends upon your career objective. It tells the employer regarding your goals and what exactly you want to be. The mistake what people commit is that they write lengthy sentences. No one really has the time to read such long statements. So, keep it as short as possible. Your objective should be simple and easy to understand.

Not only is it painful to read, it's riddled with mistakes. "It tells the employer regarding your goals and what exactly you want to be"? "The mistake what people commit"? Really? PLEASE read your writing before you post it.

This isn't grammar related but the advice also sucks. Resume objectives are redundant. The employer already knows you want a job with them - you wouldn't be applying otherwise. Don't waste resume space saying that. Instead, write a professional statement summing up your strengths and background in 2 or 3 lines. SHEESH.

Grammar Gripe of the Week

From a website I came across:

She started her own Intern company, with the goal of raising internship awareness and connecting student’s with their future in 2006.

Can you spot the mistake? I sure hope you can. Apostrophe mistakes are some of my BIGGEST pet peeves! Not only that, but the sentence is clunky, "future" should be plural for consistency, and I think "in 2006" is a misplaced modifier. If their futures were in 2006, I wonder what they're doing now? Gah.

Grammar Gripe of the Week

Because I am the grammar police, I constantly obsess over how much I despise people who can't speak English. And by that I don't mean native speakers of other languages - they're okay. It's people who were brought up speaking English who still can't speak English that get me. I admit I occasionally make a mistake, what person frantically running their fingers over a keyboard doesn't? But chronic mistake makers really get my goat.

One thing that's been bothering me lately is people who don't know common phrases. Here is an example, from someone's Facebook status (no names, sorry if the person who had this status reads this):

So-and-so is not to sure what this day in tales.

I first thought this must have been a joke. Of course the person knows that it's "entails" and not "in tales". I mean, what does "in tales" even mean in this context? It makes no sense. But I don't think the person was joking. Another one that bothers me is when people say "could of" or "would of" when they really mean "could have" or "would have".

When did we lose sight of our own language? Oh, it depresses me.

I think I'll make this grammar gripe thing a regular feature, as I really like pointing out people's mistakes. For other grammar nerds (and members of the police force) I'll also direct you to another woman who does this, The Sentence Sleuth.

Delighting in grammar!

Those of you who know me know I am a stickler for correct spelling and grammar. I frequently take pleasure in pointing out mistakes in the New York Times or other venerable publications, and when I make a mistake myself I'm often quick to correct it lest I end up looking foolish in front of the literati with which I keep company.

In today's world, however, inventions such as texting and Twitter seem to dumb-down our lanugage abilities and turn communication into something that is done in short, carelessly abbreviated bursts (u gng 2 movi 2nite?). It makes me a little bit depressed to think that proper language and all it's beautiful intricacies may be flushed down the toilet. I mean people are writing NOVELS on their CELL PHONES... Dickens must be turning over in his grave!

Amidst all the semantic turmoil, I was happy to stumble across this website: English Grammar Revolution. It's all about learning parts of speech and diagramming sentences--I know it was tedious in elementary school but for adults it's a great way to procrastinate and do your part to perpetuate language correctness.

So please don't let words become obsolete in favor of three-letter abbreviations. Don't let commas become a thing of the past. Don't wait until it's so bad that you get a letter (or more likely, a text) from your child at summer camp that looks like this:
omg mom plz snd sox feet stnk fuds gud mis u

Instead, go here and diagram a sentence. Encourage your kids/friends/illiterate neighbors to do the same.

Oh, and check out the preposition song, it's pretty sweet.

No, you are not excused

Today I received an email from a colleague with this "disclaimer" at the bottom:

Please excuse any typos as this was sent from my blackberry

Apparently the standard (and sickeningly promotional) "Sent from my BlackBerry Hurricane-or-whatever-its-called" is not enough anymore. Now we must make excuses for our inability to take correspondence seriously, and our impatience that leads us to send emails from our phones rather that waiting until we are at a computer and in a good position to communicate.

Of course, I know smart phones aren't all bad. We live in a fast paced world. Sometimes you really need to close that deal before noon, and your phone is the only communication device you've got on hand. Smart phones help businesses run smoothly and keep us in touch with people we otherwise wouldn't be able to get a hold of, and I'm all for that.

What makes me angry is that I'm being asked to excuse your behavior, when you really have no right to demand that of me. If the disclaimer had said, "Sent from my thingamajigger; may contain typos," I'd be okay with that. You're simply warning me. But to take it one step further and ask me to to go ahead and overlook the fact that I'm not important enough for you to spell-check or use proper punctuation, well that's going too far.

What's next? "Please excuse my use of annoying abbreviations?" Or "Please excuse the fact that I can't take enough time to actually type out a complete sentence?" Maybe just a blank email with "Please excuse this email, as something in my bag hit the send button accidentally and I don't actually have anything to say to you."

Oh to live back in the day when people wrote long, emotion-filled letters to each other. Now that's correspondence.