GrammarBlog

img src="http://www.grammarblog.co.uk/z_images/banners/v2launch.gif" border="0" title="We've moved to www.grammarblog.co.uk" alt="We've moved to www.grammarblog.co.uk" /> Thanks must go to the spiffing chaps of the Rissington podcast for pointing me in the direction of Speak you're Branes.

The premise behind the blog is wonderful in its simplicity. The BBC website allows members of the public to comment on selected stories in a dedicated forum section called Have Your Say. As with most forums this attracts all manner of idiotic fuckwittery including the usual suspects: sheer ignorance, blustering arrogance and your common or garden variety racism. These thoughts are usually delivered with scant regard for even the most basic laws of grammar.

Labels: BBC, conference, friends, Gordon Brown, Labour, spelling errors

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Our pals at The Engine Room have found a fun little gizmo that works out the reading level required for any blog on the interwebs.

The Engine Room was designated a genius level blog. "Great," I thought, "with the A.A Gill quote in the last post and the most indecipherable paragraph ever in a post from a couple of weeks ago we should walk it." (Incidentally, I'm not sure how I managed to insert hyperlinks into a thought, but it happened. )

Imagine my horror when, upon inserting our URL, I was confronted with this:

I was so shocked that it took me more than 2 seconds to get annoyed with the copy on this banner. A blog can't read so how can the blog have a reading level? I think the sentence should be like so:

This blog's required reading level:

Anyway, I'm not happy. Obviously the technology is deeply flawed. I demand a Goresque re-count! Something must be done to right this wrong!

I know there are those who may think that I shouldn't take this too seriously; it's just a bit of fun; my competitive smugness is extreme to the point of being nauseous etc. To those people I say, "Hi, have we not met before?"

Traditional pedants would have a field-day with that terminal preposition but I'll push on; no time for an edit in this Kerouacian ramble. (Goresque, Kerouacian, how many more names can I mangle into the vague resemblance of an adjective?)

I was slightly heartened to see that Apostrophism was awarded the same level of reading requirement. Slightly.

P.S. Well done to J.D. and the gang at the Engine Room. I'm very fucking happy for you. See, I can be gracious. I'd also like to add that I definitely didn't run http://engineroomblog.blogspot.com through the readability test to check that you were telling the truth. Ahem.

Labels: Al Gore, friends, fun, grammar, Kerouac, rants, wrong word

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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.

Apparently blogging is about more than simply proselytising to the globe, it's important to create partnerships with like-minded bloggers and improve your influence. Well this all sounded marvellously cult-like and gave me the perfect opportunity to go cruising Google looking for grammatical kicks.

On my travels I found the following outstanding blogs:

Elisabeth writes - Elisabeth is into Haikus, Steven Fry and word origins (I'm sure there is a latin-based term to use in place of 'word origins' and I'm sure Elisabeth will be able to tell me).
The Red Pen - Prolific, knowledgeable and militant - our kind of people! We were proud to be mentioned in the same post as them in SPOGG
Lowercase l - A blog dedicated to people who write in capitals but use lowercase ls. Brilliant and daft in equal measure, this blog does exactly what it says in the tin.

However this week hasn't all been a bed of roses. Whenever I find examples of grammar abuse by the lay-person, although I find it irksome, I can generally laugh it off (honestly) but when grammar atrocities are committed by professional journalists I see red.

Take this choice snippet from an article on automotoportal.com.

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?

I despair, I really do.

And Alex from St George, Utah wrote to us with the following complaint:

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.

"Gag me please"? Sorry Alex, you'll have to go to a different kind of website for that sort of request, but thanks for getting in touch. An accompanying photo would have been the icing on the cake, but rest assured your keen-eyed sleuthing has resulted in Smith's Food and Drug Store becoming another addition to... The List

Labels: friends, The List