Diagramming sentences
Look, I’ve always been a dork. A tragic, tragic nerd. If you are reading this site regularly, then you are either:
1) A dork
2) Profoundly interested in the life that dorks lead
3) Writing a paper on how best to abuse dorks
4) A voyeur into how the uncool live their lives.
Let me give you an example.
I just bought that shirt from here. I am going to wear that shirt with relish (as in delight, not as in the piquante green condiment.)
I majored in anthropology with minors in French and English. While it’s true that my French is utter shit these days, and the last time I was in France I tried to speak to a cabbie but wound up blurting some confusing mishmash of French and Swedish, the English has (for the most part) stayed with me. I loved English. And when I say “English”, I of course mean literature because I am a great bit raving nerd whose bookshelves would groan if I didn’t live the sadist dream of making myself clear them out dilligently. But I also loved grammar. Diagramming sentences rocked, big time. And I’m not a purist, because I will start a sentence out with “but” or “and”, rather like I just did (so suck that, my AP English biddie of a teacher!) I will split my infinitives and I do love a good run-on sentence. I’ll abuse commas and accept that the occasional ellipses is a-ok (that would be occasional ellipses. I’m looking at you, popular blogger who hideously overuses them.) I take first, second, and third person and mix them all up, throw them in the air, and confuse them, often in the same post (and in times of caffeine shortage, even in the same sentence). And the word “fuck” is so versatile that it can and will be used in a multitude of ways.
But fuck with grammar and you’ll piss me off. Worse, muck up vocabulary and do it in a way that is not whimsical or tongue in cheek, and I will organize the Word Police and we will come to your home and make you diagram every sentence in War and Peace. I can be hideously intolerant of abusing the English language (the others I can’t speak for and can in fact be condemnded in war crime courts for my own abuse of French, Russian and Swedish, but hey-I was learning.)
Some of my biggest pet peeves:
1) “Irregardless”. There is no such word. If it is regardless, then it must therefore be interpreted as irregardless, yes? When I hear businessmen say “irregardless” in a meeting they have instantly lost my respect, and I silently want to slide a container of pot noodles across the table and tell them to read that, since that’s more on their level.
2) “Ginormous”. Hate, hate, hate. It was added to the dictionary recently as it has become common parlance. This, to me, is Merriam-Webster bending over and taking it up the backside without lube. You do not cave, Merriam-Webster. Ginormous is not a word. You will never, ever hear me use it.
3) “How come”? I don’t know, why? “How come”? What are you, twelve?
4) When I hear singers sing words such as “I want you” I cringe because inevitably it comes out “I wantchoo”. You should not feel compelled to say “gesundheit” to someone singing. There are three words there, none of them involving the -ch consonants. I. Want. You. There are no trains and no sneezing involved.
5) A bit of a regional thing, but I loathe when people say “It cost me 20 pound!” No, darling, see – it might cost you one pound. If there were more than one of those little bugger coins involved, then there’s an -s involved. It cost you “20 poundS.” I hear people say the pound as a singular when it is a plural all the time. I am aware that a pretentious Yank correcting a local someone will equal a big smackdown. I keep my mouth closed, but seriously people you are not helping my ulcer.
6) Also a regional one – “whilst” does my fucking head in. I cannot say it. I will not say it. It’s a purely British thing, I think, but my little American brain screams “Pomposity!” each time it hears the words because Americans do not say “whilst” unless they have a pole up their backside and images of being highfalutin. The British do say it, and I’m having a hard time divorcing my mind from the idea that over here, it’s normal.
7) People need to stop it with the random apostrophes. Seriously. Every time I see a sign saying “DVD’S 3 for £20″ I want to get some white-out and remove the mark. The DVDs do not own anything in that sentence. If you want to say “The DVD’s fucked” then that’s ok because the DVD is something. Likewise “The DVD’s puppy” is ok because the DVD is a canine owner, albeit it’s a little weird that a DVD might have a puppy. If one is trying to indicate pluarlity then just have an S. No need to dress that bad boy up, ok?
8 ) Interwebs/internets. Some humorous individual came up with these two little gems and oh, the laughter! The joviality! The complete whimsy that are those two words! What, add an -s to the end of those to be, what? Cute? Hip? Jaunty? What? The words themselves imply plurality. They represent networks. So by saying “internets” one is saying “communications networks networks. There are fucking loads of them. It’s all networks, all the time.” Leave out the -s. No need to be coy with me, I’ve been here a while.
9) Text speak. People who know me know that there is no chance in hell they’ll be getting a reply from me if their text includes “CUL8R”. Speak English or don’t waste my time. Can’t text very well? Then don’t do it. Jeff was walking around the house the other day saying a completely unintelligable word.
“Dude, what are you saying?” I asked him.
He repeated this sound, something akin to having just had dental surgery and his mouth was still feeling the novocaine love.
“What?”
He said it again. “I got it from the web, but I don’t know what it means,” he said, shrugging.
I realized what he was saying. ” ROFLMAO.” Only he was saying it as a word. See? The world has moved on. The next generation does not know what these words mean. Long may it remain so.
There are probably other examples but I’ve gotten myself worked up here, so I’ll leave my totalitarian behavior behind for a moment. I reserve the right to come back and add one to make the list an even 10, because leaving it at 9 feels wrong (says she, who must have the gas station pump finish in multiples of 5, because she’s a bit ADD like that.)
And, undoubtedly, some sharp crayon is going to pop out of the box and point out a mistake I’ve made somewhere in this post, because that’s inevitable, so let me just say this: Do as I say, not as I do.
Unless you’re here dork hunting.
In which case, give me a running head start?
-S.
My favortie people are dorks…and so that is why I read your blog. Well, that and I adore reading about the Lemonheads:)
OH…I think I might have your #10! People who write “quite” instead of “quiet”. That drives me completely, batshit crazy.
it’s/its
It’s really not that hard! :)
You are not alone. :P
I sort of want to marry you after reading that post. Sorry Alastair (and David Tennant). She’s now going to be my lesbian life partner and we’re going to go around whomping people on the heads who say idiotic things like “so don’t I” and who CAPITALIZE ALL THEIR WORDS LIKE THEY’RE SHOUTING. Or like their shouting. Or there shouting.
Though that would put a damper on my intended marriage to Anderson Cooper. Rats.
But at least let me
blow your mindamaze you with this little gem I found whilst surfing upon the interwebs (I actually do say whilst, upon, and other such stick-up-the-heiney phrases, but that is largely because my friends already think I’m a pretentious ass…and I intersperse them with monotone phrases like “that’s hot” and “fo’ shizzle” to counterbalance pretentious with being a complete tard).Nominees for #10…I’d like to kick people in the throat for saying “I seen it” or confusing your with you’re. I cringe everytime someone types “could of” instead of “could have”
Nerds have character,those other people are boring.
Another nominee for #10 – when people mix-up the use of “effect” and “affect”.
I have a coworker who regularly says, “omg,” “jk,” or “lol.”
I’ll tolerate ginormous but only at Christmas time when my twin sister does her best Buddy the Elf impression randomly exclaiming, “These toilets are ginormous!” Makes me laugh everytime (though it’s fair to say we’re probably three sheets to the wind when we’re finding this hilarious).
It’s contagious, this love for a language. Once upon a time I only cringed with pain when my eyes fell upon one of these false apostrophes in my first language (German). After having plugged through a lot of blog archives in English, having read thousands of comments here and there, I, too, cringe at their/there/they’re, at ‘ginormous’ and ‘gazillion’… Your beautiful and eloquent language is one of the (many) reasons for me to read this blog every single day for about two years now.
And, by the way, is it “Mike and me” or “Mike and I”? I’ve seen both…
L.
@ Meg-granted, using “ginormous” in a Buddy the Elf impression is totally within reason and completely acceptable.
@ Lily – That’s my number 10. Well done, you! It’s “Mike and I”, and my number 10 would be when I read things like “Me and Mike want to rule the world”. That makes my teeth sweat. (Oh, and if you see loads of errors in my archives pretend they’re not there, yes? I know I have random punctuation in a lot of posts from various importing from different locations. It bothers me so much I want to fix them, but then, you know, I need to stop my compulsions somewhere!)
If you want to seem me implode say “Can I ax you something?” Unless you plan on popping by my house to help me chop wood this weekend.
There, their and they’re misspelling drives me to drink! As does alot for a lot.
1) Mixing up Bare and Bear…. “Bare with me?” No, I don’t know you well enough to get naked with you!!
2) Recent american discovery “I might can do that…” oooh the horror. You might or you can? they’re two different things. One gives me more hope than the other, don’t steal my hope.
Sarah – R.A.V.E.N Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun. I once had a co-worker in debt to me for a whole day’s worth of tea after he bet me that affect and effect were the same thing. He still IMs me about effect/affect and so I just reply RAVEN and we’re golden.
Actually, it can be “Mike and me” if it’s at the end of the sentence, like, “He hit Mike and me.” The rule is: what pronoun would you use if “Mike” wasn’t in the sentence? Since you’d say “He hit me,” it becomes, “He hit Mike and me.” If you already knew that, I apologize. Lily, your English is flawless as far as I can tell.
I don’t have too many grammar pet peeves, but pronouncing “nuclear” as nuke-you-lar drives me insane. It’s nuke-LEE-er. Presidents Bush and Carter both said nuke-you-lar. How can a guy in that position butcher that word so badly?
Sarah,
Can’t effect also be a verb? If I effect a change in someone’s habits, then I bring about a change in someone’s habits, right? It’s not used often (and even less frequently used correctly :), but I think it is grammatically accurate.
Oops. Actually my comment about “effect” was for Jayne. I apologize Sarah.
I’m shocked that you hate the word “ginormous” as the word came into parlance via Elf. Then again, using it as everyday vocabulary is probably not good.
How about the southern US saying “I’m fixin’ to do that”? That used to make me crazy when I lived in TX.
Classics then English, and I’m with you all the way.
These also make me cringe when I hear them:
“for free”
false gentility – using “gentleman” rather than “man” (I axed the gentleman in the next seat to be more quite surfing his internet’s)
One thing I’ve noticed since reading the interwebs – there seems to be a trend towards splitting a statement into question and answer fragments. For example, “I don’t like chocolate, but this? Is fantastic.” Blah! Those aren’t even sentences. What is wrong with writing “I don’t like chocolate, but this is fantastic.”?
‘less’ -v- ‘fewer’ !! that’s a new one I’ve noticed…drives me mad…
I have been tempted to carry around a black marker to correct restaurant menus: the most recent example beings “Burgers” (well done) followed by “Extra’s” (why dear god why).
The less/fewer thing drives me batty too. It does not have “less calories” motherfucker. It has less fat and FEWER calories. But that doesn’t matter now because I have just shanked you in the neck.
If I could swim I would hop a train to New York, swim across the Atlantic, and kiss you on the lips for writing this post.
Instead, I’m off to buy the t-shirt.
I think being in IT, especially support, has a big impact on whether you find “internets” and “intarwebs” funny. I totally understand why it annoys you but to most of my IT friends it still makes us laugh. Blame the users we deal with. :D
I’ll assume you’ve read “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” then. I found that book, hugged it to my chest and thought thank god I’m not alone. Someone else wants to correct the apostrophe disasters. Its and it’s, they’re and their and there. Shannon’s post, shannons post’s. PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT. Learn your apostrophes before I lose my mind.
I think the kids are grammatically ruined by texting technology. My mother is a grammar teacher and she’s ready to retire now for this reason alone. Kids put textspeak in their papers and she goes supernova on them. On the other hand, when she texts me in grammatically perfect full sentences it’s kind of hilarious.
ATM Machine and PIN number are huge pet peeves of mine. Also, GPS system. See, the “machine,” “number,” and “system” are already built into the acronym.
Also, there are no such words as administate, conversate or orientate. You can administer, converse, or orient.
And don’t get me started on “I could care less.” The correct phrase is “I couldn’t care less.” To say that you could care less implies that you care at least a little bit. You really mean that “I care so little that it is not possible for me to care any less.”
I also get annoyed at people who use whom incorrectly. It’s not really that difficult to know the difference, but honestly, you sound much less stupid just eliminating whom from your vocabulary if you don’t know how to use than to use it incorrectly.
As you might have guessed I spend quite a lot of time thinking about these things. But strangely enough I don’t worry too much over it in my blog writing. I know I should, but I don’t do a lot of editing when I post. I do a quick spell check but not much more. I suppose I should do better for the sake of others like me who get a twitchy ass when they see or hear bad grammar.
and of course I just found a typo in my own comment. I suck.
So spot on with so many of these! My MIL will turn the channel of a news broadcast if the anchor uses inappropriate grammar. I am not as hard nose about it, but one that sends me over the edge is ‘two twins’. Unless the person is talking about two sets of twins, saying two twins is completely, well, dumb. Yet I hear or read this all the time when one set of twins is being referred to.
I am not a grammar nazi by far, but when it is in print, or in an ad-or especially on the news, it should be correct. Some of my faves are you’re when they mean your, their when it should be there, or even worse, they are (they’re), alot, ain’t, and of course the butchery of it/its/it’s. On the note, the one saying I can not get behind is deja vu all over again. I would like to kick the piss out of it.
Don’t even get me started on text speak. If one more person says to me, face to face, “LOL” when something is funny, I am not accountable for my actions.
I guess I am a bit of a dork-and not only do my gas totals at the pump have to be either a 0 or 5, but the volume on the TV has to end in an even number. Adam will often move it to an odd number and sit back and watch me squirm, as I try not to cave to my OCD. Fucker.
I would love it if people would stop saying and writing “couple hours” when what they really mean to say is “couple of hours.”
the volume on the TV has to end in an even number. Teresa, you are my new rockstar hero. I do the same.
Gina-you are buying the shirt. I bow down.
Lizvelrene-I’m one of those grammatically correct texters. I can see I need to shake things up a bit, live life on the edge a bit.
People who say: sort of, kind of. Or people that use ellipses improperly.
People who write “discrete” when they mean “discreet.” And vice versa.
I think “Internets” came about because George W. Bush said it–’04 Presidential debate, maybe? Anyway, that’s who I think of when I use it. It’s intentionally mocking the stupidity of the extra “s.”
Just you wait until your kids can talk and go to school. You will be waging a war like no other on a daily basis. Yesterday’s example was “I ain’t doin’ nuffin’” Yes, let’s wind mummy right up to the top with that one.
It’s the misuse of “its” and “it’s” that bugs me in the written word, I see it in official documents all of the time (because I look for it I suppose)
@ Caroline M – or worse – “nuffink”. “Nuffink” makes me want to throw the Oxford Dictionary at people’s heads.
Der interwebs has ruint the language. ROLFMAO? hardly! cringing, maybe.
Solomon, you are correct and as with all rules of English grammar, there are exceptions. :D
That’s what makes it so beautiful yet infuriating.
Did anyone else find that they were working harder than usual to ensure that their comments were grammatically correct in response to this post?
Oh yeah, one, that I do, that is very bad “!?” at the end of a sentence. Mea Culpa.
You should check out Language Log, the linguistics blog, which often has great grammar pieces. Two other ones that drive me mad fro a professional standpoint are people saying prosecute when they mean sue and people using practice when they mean practise.
So I am a dork to the highest degrees as well. I was even on both the grammar and current events bowl teams in school. As a fomer PR practioner and copy editor, I abhor so many gramatical mistakes that most others don’t even notice. A big one for me is seeing punctuation at the end of a bullet pointed phrase. And I hate it when people are trying to sound educated and use made up (or bastardizations of) words. An example of this all-to-frequent phenomena was uttered out of Kate Gosselin’s mouth on Monday night’s “Jon and Kate” show where she said she and her husband were “in agreeance” on something – I wanted to shoot the television after that one.
I too am a dork -must be one of the reason I am addicted to your blog.
Vast Majority give me fits. How does one define vast majority. A majority is over 50%. If one has a vast majority is that a vast of the 50+% or something else? My take is a vast majority is something over 26% but less than 51%.
Why do flammable and inflammable mean the same when “in” typically means not?
Does a house burn up or down?
Lack of candor? Say lied.
I too am a dork -must be one of the reason I am addicted to your blog.
Vast Majority give me fits. How does one define vast majority. A majority is over 50%. If one has a vast majority is that a vast of the 50+% or something else? My take is a vast majority is something over 26% but less than 51%.
Why do flammable and inflammable mean the same when “in” typically means not?
Does a house burn up or down?
I’m proud to be a dork–and the grammar thing drives me nuts too. I wanted to be a teacher for years and any time I see a spelling/grammar mistake, I ache to get out my red pen.
I found this a few months ago, and while it may drive you crazy, I do hope it at least gives you a laugh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEWgs6YQR9A
My useless degree in English gives me permission to break the rules; I know the rules and am aware I am breaking them.
Sorry to disappoint, but I love to use the word Ginormous. Someday, we can bicker about it over a ginormous nine-glasses bottle of vino.
You may or may not be a dork, but judging from the responses here you are definitely a dork magnet. Count me as another one of the dorks.
When it comes to written communication I just want to read something that looks like a semi-intelligent person wrote it. Emails and blog comments that are unreadable due to nonexistent grammar and spelling skills give me a migraine and tend to get dumped quickly. One of my latest pet peeves is seeing that fewer and fewer people know the difference in definition and usage of “lose” and “loose”. And a really irritating one? I saw on Amazon.com an ad for a book called “Roll Models”. After looking at the reviews and a few excerpts, I quickly figured out it likely wasn’t a deliberate or tongue-in-cheek misspelling. Editor must’ve been drinking, sleeping, or screwing to have let this one get by. Saddest part was, it looked like it may have been a decent book.
I am one of those long time lurkers who has never commented before. This is brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
I am with you on the ‘irregardless’ and the text speak, and whoever said ‘i seen it’ is horrific, I couldn’t agree more. I work with a girl who constantly drops her contractions, so instead of saying ‘I’ll get that for you’ she says ‘I get that for you’, kills me every time.
The one that really makes my teeth itch is when people say ‘I could care less’ instead of ‘I couldn’t care less’. If you say you could care less then you obviously care some, which totally misses the point of the expression.
Heh. My TV volume must be on multiples of five. I’ve advanced to using things that end in “3″ if I absolutely must.
I write like I talk, which apparently means that I will get my nipples ripped off if ever we were to meet.
The one that makes me crazy is when my husband calls me on the phone and asks, “Where you at?” God, it makes my eyes cross just typing it out.
I’ll go with 2. Nah.. I read you because I googled something, your blog came up in the search and your post had me ROFLMAO.
I love you!
#5 gets me all the time. People here in the U.S. make cents singular when it should be plural all the time. At first I thought it was just an African-American (which I am) usage. However, I was in line at the grocery store the other day and I heard a non-African-American woman say to her companion, “How much change do I need? Ummm, thirty-five cent”.
I read your blog because I heart you. Also because I’m a tremendous dork. And a lawyer. So I have to respond to some items on your list or my head will explode.
#1: Hear, hear! I’d also add “supposably” to this rant.
#2: (Not intended to be argumentative) – isn’t language a living thing? Isn’t it inevitable that words will be added to the language over the course of time? Banning new words smacks of that agency in France that tries to “preserve la langue.”
#3: I don’t hear “how come” anymore. How come? (ducking and running).
#4: Amen, sister.
#7: It’s all about Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
#8: Mea culpa, mea culpa.
#9: Preach it baby!
The erroneous use of singular and plural (as in your pound(s) example) makes me crazy. Also – more than, less, fewer – those always seem to be misused. Of course, I can’t think of an example off hand…
First of all, I want to cuddle with this post. That’s how much I love it. I thought I was the only one who loved diagramming sentences. And I am currently cracking myself up picturing Jeff walking around trying to pronounce ROFLMAO!
Second, the volume on the TV has to end in an even number? Oh, you mean I’m not the only one?! Except my preferences are stranger. Not just any even number will suffice. 22 and 28 are fine, but 26 needs to be 25. I’m OK with 24, but I’d probably go ahead and round that up to 25 too.
(Also? Not sorry for the “?!”. The interrobang is a real punctuation mark! Ask Wikipedia.)
Oh thank God for this post!
As a Linguistics Graduate, I didn’t deal with any of that finicky literature stuff. Just hard core words. The apostrophe, however, is my Nemesis. Always has been, always will be.
The one thing that really makes me want to slap somebody upside the head with a Halibut is when they say things like “more happier”. You’re either happier or more happy. Get it right people!
I’m with you on the gas thing too, except mine has to end in a 0.
(oh and I know my own grammar whilst typing is awful but I speak better than I write!)