Grammar Nazism – Page 2 – Splendid Isolation

Speed Bump #218

March 22, 2024 Kim du Toit Grammar Nazism

“A doctor shared some interesting intel with me that left me shook – and he’s not the only one that’s noticed the surprising trend.”

#1: the word is “shaken” (not “shook”, which is transitive, e.g. “he shook the illiterate woman till her neck snapped”)

#2: unless one is referring to a thing or place, it should read “not the only one who’s (or who has) noticed the surprising trend”.

Of course, the tart in question is Australian so one might consider some grammarian latitude, but fuck ’em: they also cheat at cricket.

Speed Bump #287

February 12, 2024 Kim du Toit Grammar Nazism

Aaaarrrrgh.

Oy. “Everyday” is an adjective, e.g. “an everyday occurrence” is something that occurs, well, every day. Which is what should have been written in the above headline, but Chief Editor Spell-Check doesn’t recognize the difference.

Fucking illiterate assholes.

Speed Bump #246

January 16, 2024 Kim du Toit Grammar Nazism

Aaaargh.

For the want of a space… it’s “WALK [space] OUT”, you fucking illiterate morons. People who walk out from their jobs can be said to be staging a “walkout” (which is a NOUN). Here’s another example, from a different article:

The mum added that she goes to the gym but has been struggling to find the time to workout.

That’s “work [space] out”, you sub-morons. A “workout” is what you get when you exercise [he explained patiently].

First we had “verbing”, where nouns are turned into verbs (e.g. he
“exited” the room grrrr grrr grrrrr), and now we have the reverse… “nouning”, where verbs are turned into nouns?

I know what this calls for:

All Is Explained

October 27, 2023 Kim du Toit Grammar Nazism

Now here’s a study I can get behind:

Bad grammar is so maddening it activates the ‘fight or flight’ response within the human body

No prizes for guessing which one, in my case.

Instances of bad grammar can include mixing up tenses within a sentence, confusing the singular and plural, using a double negative or misusing a comma.
They explained that knowledge about a first language is largely implicit, as most people did not need to sit and study to learn their mother tongue.
And this could mean that our body reacts to bad grammar even if we cannot pinpoint exactly what is wrong within a sentence.

My problem is that I usually can pinpoint the mistake; and my response is

Grrr grrrr grrrrr…

Busted !!!!!

September 28, 2023 Kim du Toit Grammar Nazism

From Alert Reader Ray G in Colorado:

Hi Kim,

I know you’re a grammar nazi. Don’t know if you want any feedback on your own English usage. But anyway, it’s “to wit”, not “to whit”. You can look it up…

To say that I was confounded by this gentle rebuke is to make an understatement on the scale of “Kelly Brook has decent boobs”…

…because Ray is absolutely right: it is “to wit” and not “to whit”. And I have no idea why I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.

So what to do? Of course, I went back into my archives and corrected as many of those malfeasances as I could find (thank you, Winston Smith). And here’s the reference to the above understatement: