Posted on 02/28/2013 8:40:02 AM PST by Shout Bits
Will Rogers famously wanted his epitaph to read "I never met a man I didn't like." I sometimes turn a joke on Mr. Rogers's line, and say "I have never met anyone with good grammar I did not like." Considering today's state of affairs, grammar is an unlikely metric for kinship. The nation is overrun with a socialist fever, unsustainable government obligations, and appalling corruption. Why should grammar sit with these important issues?
Man's greatest tool in building an environment to his liking is language. Every success employs communication and retrieval of archived knowledge. Employing Standard English is the least we can do to respect the foundation of society.
Also, anyone using correct grammar is part rebel. Grammar is not effectively taught in school, so anyone employing Standard English learned it elsewhere. Standard English is rarely spoken on the street, so its use is a conscious choice that sets grammar rebels apart. There are few rewards for tense agreement or proper gerund use, so the grammar rebel must do it for sport or to set an independent standard for himself. Those who claim to rebel by tattooing themselves or squatting with Occupy types are conformist and commonplace compared to a grammar rebel.
A happy nature of Standard English is its incompatibility with Political Correctness. Because the singular object is 'his,' and PC has no imagination, most people use 'their' (e.g. 'everybody lost their investments when Ponzi was arrested'). Anyone with common sense knows that when 'everybody' and 'his' are used together, females are implied. PC militants know this too, but their motive is thought control. In 1984, George Orwell warned that language laws could be used to limit expression and thought; yet the same PC autocrats that assign Orwell to their students practice the perversion of language for political gain with no apparent ironic guilt. Anyone who still speaks Standard English or dares to use anachronisms such as 'freshman' vs. 'first year student' is a rebel who must signal danger to the PC police. PC is about limiting thought and expression so that ideology falls in line. Standard English is sublime resistance.
Grammar rebels are independent thinkers beyond PC politics. NBC anchors butcher the tool of their trade nightly, as do most newscasters. NBC news president Steve Capus resigned this month, coincident with numerous ethical scandals, including fraudulent editing of tapes to make innocent people sound racist and generally insensitive. NBC actively lies to promote its agenda, a practice well beyond ordinary bias. Bias is inevitable and universal, but active campaigns of deception are inexcusable. When a grammar rebel rejects the language of Brian Williams, it shows that he is informing himself elsewhere.
Be a grammar rebel; employ Standard English. There may be no better way of demonstrating independent thought and values on a daily basis. There may not be enough time, and certainly not enough energy to fight PC and the socialist Old Media at every turn, but a grammar rebel can stand apart without hardly never trying.
Shout Bits can be found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShoutBits
There are those who (in your words) “patrol” threads looking for the least offense. I personally am not one of those.
However: there are those of us who are reading threads and find most egregious grammatical errors and comment about those same errors.
Those who love our language are always going to take offense when a major misspeak occurs. I GRATE every time I hear the word “decimate” used when the writer means “destroyed, obliterated, utterly ravaged, razed to the ground”.
Decimate literally means “reduced by 1 in 10”, for heaven’s sake!
“Irregardless” is as much a word as “irredundant!” You either mean *regardless* or *irrelevant*.
There, their, and they’re MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS!
Rant off. I have dozens of grammatical/spelling issues, but I have to get back to work tonight.
“cray-cray”?
You’ve got me there, what could that possibly mean?
Yea, i agre :-)
There you are! I repaired it for you! ROFL
“If I can’t clearly understand a person’s first sentence due to poor grammar, spelling, or punctuation, I don’t bother deciphering the rest. I figure if their point isn’t important enough to warrant care when posting, it isn’t important for me to read it.”
i agre
*********************************
I must confess that the improper use of the word "myself" is something that drives me bonkers. I have another pet peeve, which is that few people today seem to use the words "that", "have" and "of", other than when they use them incorrectly.
I've also recently heard quite a few people on various TV shows say "I'm oona" instead of "I'm going to", which makes me cringe.
Predictable jokes, predictable responses from militant illiterates. They’ve got their reasons, doncha know!
“You’ve got to love those “Grammar Nazis” and “Spelling Freaks” that patrol message boards and threads looking for any mistakes.”
Hay! watch it ther! Do’t git I involved in ths!
I should of said that. ;-) Before anybody has a cow, this is satire.
What, pray tell, is “cray-cray”?
There are those who (in your words) “patrol” threads looking for the least offense. I personally am not one of those.
However: there are those of us who are reading threads and find most egregious grammatical errors and comment about those same errors.
Those who love our language are always going to take offense when a major misspeak occurs. I GRATE every time I hear the word “decimate” used when the writer means “destroyed, obliterated, utterly ravaged, razed to the ground”.
Decimate literally means “reduced by 1 in 10”, for heaven’s sake!
“Irregardless” is as much a word as “irredundant!” You either mean *regardless* or *irrelevant*.
There, their, and they’re MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS!
Rant off. I have dozens of grammatical/spelling issues, but I have to get back to work tonight.
“...without hardly never trying.”
You almost made it.
“21 Beatles songs - same 3 chords (A D E)”
LOL
I’m into jazz. I like to annoy rockers any time that I can although I do enjoy jazz/rock. :-)
LMAO!! I love your humbleness, humblegunner.
ugh! again, i was running out the door when i sent that... i meant to include you and humblegunner... i have to stop checking in on FR when i am in a hurry!
An apology to each of you for the double post. I left the ‘puter and posting windows were still open, so I re-posted them. Oops.
LOL!
“If I can’t clearly understand a person’s first sentence due to poor grammar, spelling, or punctuation, I don’t bother deciphering the rest.”
For me, it’s “your” vs. “you’re”. My grammer and spelling are nothing to be proud of, but people sound stupid to me when using those words incorrectly.
And don’t get me started on “there”, “their’ and “they’re”.
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