GrammarBlog

Via Digg I found a funny poem by a guy called Dean Hunt about the dangers of relying too much on one's spell checker.

Labels: funny, poetry, spellchecker, spelling

There's no argument over the fact that Andy Gray is the best football pundit on British television.

Tonight, on Sky Sports' peerless The Last Word, he surpassed himself with two wonderful additions to the English language:

Evolvement (noun):
A sporting alternative to 'evolution'; typically used to describe a measurable development in an individual's sporting prowess.

Unexplicable (adjective):
A sporting alternative to 'inexplicable'; deployed when criticising poor defending or egregious refereeing decisions.

Labels: Andy Gray, Pundrity, Sky

Sandwiche's, originally uploaded by iandavid.

Why, oh why, oh why would you think that "Sandwiches" would ever need to have an apostrophe between the 'e' and 's'.

Sandwiche's

Labels: apostrophe abuse, photos, signage

Forget Eats, Shoots and Leaves; those of you looking for a more highbrow grammar-based paperback would do well to consider Bill Bryson's splendid Troublesome Words.

This really is excellent stuff. It covers some great topics (everything from the usage of 'who' and 'whom', to common literary misquotations), often in substantial depth, and is pithily entertaining throughout.

Highly recommended.

Labels: bill bryson, books, grammar, reading list

Labels: cartoon, funny, grammar, prepositions

I hate it when instructions aren't clear. If a product manufacturer or a service provider has a limited number of words with which to instruct a customer, those words should be chosen carefully. Unlike this example from a London underground ticket machine.

...until you feel a positive connection.

Labels: instructions, marketing copy, vague

They say that each page will have “somewhat fewer words,” which is really bad editing; there are either fewer words or there aren’t; “somewhat” is meaningless and a grammatical waste of one of those precious words left behind.

Labels: Buzzmachine, Jeff Jarvis, the Times

British comedy at it's best

Labels: apostrophe abuse, marketing copy, photos, punctuation

GrammarBlog has been up and running for a few months now and we're having lots of fun. We are all first time bloggers so we spent a couple of months finding our feet, then Tom implemented the lovely design and we haven't looked back since.

Yugo (1981-1991)

It was the lowest-priced new car of the 80's, produced in Yugoslavia and introduced to US market in 1986. by Malcolm Bricklin. It sold very well, but the main reason for that was the price of the car, not it's reliability or efficiency. The list of the problems with this car is quite long. Owners complained basically about everything – engine problems, steering problems, problems with the stereo, problems with the seat belt, problems with the floor. The car could stall and fail to restart without prior indication or warning. Since it was so cheap, could we really expect it to work flawlessly?

Pet peeve: Today I went to Smith's grocery store, and in the frozen foods section I found an appalling abuse of frozen treats. There were signs for frozen pizza, budget dinners and (at this I gasped audibly): "popsicle's." Gag me, please. Between that and their difficult self check-out, I may never go there again.

Labels: friends, The List

I have a love/hate relationship with crappy ambiguous marketing copy. I love it because it's useful for duping the masses; I hate it because it's used for duping the masses. I love it when you read a snappy phrase that sounds great; I hate it because it doesn't mean anything. I love it because when it's done badly the results can be hilarious.

Labels: funny, headlines, marketing copy, vague

This is just priceless. While acquainting myself with StumbleUpon, one of many social sharing sites floating about the t'interweb super-autobahn, I found (or stumbled upon) this image (click the image for a better view).

It appears StumbleUpon user, Mellybee (19) was less than impressed by this unfortunate chap's profile on a dating site. Her brilliant reaction, instead of just not going out with him, was to take a red pen to his efforts and share her contempt with everyone on the internet. Good girl!

Through my tears of laughter (the drawings are the pièce de résistance), I couldn't help but notice, as I'm sure you have too, that Mellybee made a few glaring omissions and even a spelling mistake of her own. Logically the only thing for me to do was to correct her corrections. You can see the results here.

I am well aware that even with my input the list of errors is far from exhaustive but it's a step, at least, in the right direction.

Labels: grammar, photos, punctuation, spelling, StumbleUpon

It was with great trepidation that I clicked the submit button at the end of the blogger spelling test. I had made the decision that whatever my score, I was going to share it with you, dear readers.

Labels: spelling

pe·ruse (p-rz)
tr.v. pe·rused, pe·rus·ing, pe·rus·es
To read or examine, typically with great care.
[Middle English perusen, to use up : Latin per-, per- + Middle English usen, to use; see use.]
pe·rusa·ble adj.
pe·rusal n.
pe·ruser n.
Usage Note: Peruse has long meant "to read thoroughly" and is often used loosely when one could use the word read instead. Sometimes people use it to mean "to glance over, skim," as in I only had a moment to peruse the manual quickly, but this usage is widely considered an error. Sixty-six percent of the Usage Panel finds it unacceptable.

Labels: errors, grammar, vocabulary