OT: For the Grammar Squad
- From: ronnie <r_heuer@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 09:49:05 -0800 (PST)
Blame it on the economy? One thing they didn't mention are
pronunciation snobs. I admit to having a hard time dealing with a
colleague who places an order every day for her eXpresso.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28900351/
Fastidious spelling snobs pushed over the edge
Books, blogs and obsessiveness mark a brand-new war of the words
Kim Carney / msnbc.com
By Diane Mapes
msnbc.com contributor
updated 7:56 a.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 3, 2009
Some people avoid Krispy Kreme because of the calories. Angela
Nickerson won’t go there because of the Ks.
“I confess, I’m a spelling, grammar and punctuation snob,” says the 35-
year-old travel writer from Sacramento, Calif. “And I won’t patronize
businesses with misspelled signs. It’s like hearing fingernails
running down a chalkboard.”
Life isn’t easy for language lovers such as Nickerson. Over the past
decade, her beloved mother tongue has been mashed, mangled and
mistreated by everyone from a sitting president to a squadron of
texting preteens. Misspelled menus have become the stuff of bad
dreams. (Try our Sweat and Sour Chicken!) Punctuation is not only hit-
and-miss, it’s potentially hazardous. (Employees must “wash hands.”)
But while blunders and bloopers have ever exasperated the spelling
snobs and grammar grunions of the world, our recent woes — housing
foreclosures, massive layoffs, rising debt and war — may be ratcheting
up the pressure some feel to seize control of something (anything!),
even if it’s just a properly placed comma.
“Hanging on to some kind of rule might be comforting to people,” says
Bethany Keeley, a grad student from Athens, Ga., who runs The “Blog”
of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. “People are looking for something
they can control and ‘What should we do about our foreign policy?’ is
a lot more complicated a question than ‘Should the period go inside or
outside the quotation mark?’ ”
Dale Siegel, a financial expert from White Plains, N.Y., whose
spelling is routinely corrected, says she’s definitely noticed a
change in people.
“In general, I think people are getting a little bit meaner about
correcting others or sharing what they call their ‘observations,’ ”
she says. “They’re uptight and stressed out about losing their jobs.
And if it makes them feel better to tell me I have a string hanging
off my skirt or I used the word ‘your’ when I really meant to use the
word ‘you’re,’ then fine.”
The English patient
Stress can affect how forgiving people are of spelling and punctuation
errors, says Pauline Wallin, a clinical psychologist from Camp Hill,
Pa.
“When people are under stress, they have less tolerance for minor
frustrations,” she says. “Think of the harried mother rushing around
trying to get her kids ready for school who loses it when one of them
can’t find his homework. Spelling is something concrete and has a
definite right answer so it does make you feel temporarily in
control.”
But there are plenty of other principles at play as well.
An obsession with proper usage may be related to some kind of
perfectionist streak, she says, or it could have to do with childhood
patterns of wanting to please adults or teachers by doing things
right. Putting somebody down by pointing out their bad spelling also
could be a power thing. Or it could simply be part of the brain’s
natural function.
“Our brains are wired to notice what’s different and when you’re sure
of the right way and the wrong way, you notice mistakes more,” says
Wallin, who admits to dropping out of an exercise class because the
instructor kept misusing the word “lay.”
But we don’t just notice mistakes, the psychologist notes. We also
pass judgment and assign blame for them.
“Attribution theory comes into this as well,” she says. “My mistakes
are caused by external circumstances, but others’ are caused by a lack
of skill or a character flaw.”
Gary Cohen, an executive coach from Minneapolis who’s been hassled
about his spelling for years, says character has nothing to do with
it.
“I didn’t have a choice about being a good speller,” he says. “It
wasn’t about lack of effort or practice or laziness, which is what it
can often be associated with. I grew up with learning differences. My
daughter has them too.”
Indeed, researchers at Oxford University believe the ability to spell
may have more to do with our DNA than the amount of time we spend with
our nose in a dictionary. Others believe nutrition and sleep patterns
can affect the way our brain manages the arduous task of learning the
English language.
Revenge of the nerds
Regardless of the reasons we make mistakes — or feel the urge to
correct the ones we observe in others — word nerds have definitely
decided it’s time to kick adverbs and take names.
The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in books, broadcasts
and puckish blogs that poke fun at common gaffes and proffer usage
tips for those not in the know. Language love is celebrated via T-
shirts, Facebook pages and shiny new holidays such as National Grammar
Day. Even Oprah’s gotten in on the style and usage scene by asking
Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty to clear up confusion about compound
possessives.
But these newly hip word warriors are doing more than writing odes to
apostrophes and posting tips for people who don’t know their like or
as from a hole in the ground.
The 350,000-member Facebook group “I Judge You When You Use Poor
Grammar” encourages its members to “seek out the infidels (grammar
offenders) and … document their acts of terror. Take pictures and post
them in this group to serve as examples to all.”
Self-proclaimed grammar vandal Kate McCulley took up her standard — or
rather her Sharpie pen and sheath of press-on commas — a year and a
half ago, determined to fix the pesky punctuation errors she
encountered along the streets of her native Boston.
“I don’t go out and do this every day, but if there’s something
exceptionally bad, I can’t resist,” says the 24-year-old marketing
analyst, who also posts pictures of badly punctuated birthday cakes
and misspelled billboards on her blog, The Grammar Vandal.
Keeley, 25, also has joined the fray with her “Blog” of “Unnecessary”
Quotation Marks, which pokes gentle fun of those who advertise “beef”
goulash or post beware of “dog” signs. (It’s actually a very scary
hamster, she ribs on her site.)
But much like the occasional diacritic, there are those who go over
the top.
Christopher Kenton, chief executive of a social media software company
from Fairfax, Calif., says his late father, a former New York Times
editor, simply could not let a mistake go uncorrected.
“He carried five pens in his pocket at all times and would edit his
morning paper at the breakfast table,” Kenton says. “My worst
embarrassment was when he corrected someone’s bumper sticker in a
public parking lot with passers-by staring.”
Spyro Poulos, a 39-year-old associate publisher from Brooklyn, N.Y.,
says he’s encountered grammar cops as well, including a few who act as
if they’re on “some superhero mission to save society from the evils
of an erroneous double negative.”
“My girlfriend will correct my punctuation when she reads my blog — I
get my ‘its’ and ‘it’s’ mixed up sometimes — but she’s an editor and
doing it out of love,” Poulos says. “We have a friend, though, who
pathologically has to correct people’s grammar and it takes every iota
of control I possess to not lash out at her.”
Nickerson, the writer who refuses to patronize stores that bear
misspelled signs — including her neighborhood “bagle” shop —
acknowledges that she may have crossed the language-use line at times.
“I noticed a new dry cleaners was opening and the apostrophe was in
the wrong place on their brand new sign,” she says. “So I called and
left a message. They called back and were not nice. I guess they were
offended.”
But word warriors aren’t just offending people. Some are offending the
law.
Last August, two self-proclaimed grammar vigilantes were charged with
conspiracy to vandalize government property after they fixed
punctuation errors on a historic hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon
National Park. The pair was sentenced to a year’s probation, banned
from national parks, prohibited from making any more corrections to
public signs and ordered to pay more than $3,000 in restitution. (No
information was available as to whether the sentence was complete or
incomplete.)
Even spelling and grammar snobs say they’ve come under fire by
zealots.
“We actually revoked one membership from a woman who refused to accept
that ‘fun’ can now be used as an adjective,” says Martha
Brockenbrough, founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good
Grammar and author of “Things That Make Us (Sic).” “Some people can’t
acknowledge that language evolves. [They’re] over the top with their
expectations.”
Misplaced motives?
How can you tell if your love of language is driving you to verbal
(not to mention adverbial) abuse? Wallin advises a close look at your
motivation for correcting others.
“If it’s to show how smart you are, it will probably backfire,
especially if the other person feels embarrassed,” she says. “However,
if you want to help your spouse or child present themselves well on a
job application or school assignment, then it’s OK to correct them.
But even here, make sure that you don’t come across as condescending
or critical. Focus on the misspelled word rather than on the person’s
lack of spelling skill.”
Luckily, many of today’s word nerds opt for gentle humor — as opposed
to a usage guide up alongside the head — to help get their message
across.
“The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar doesn’t walk around
with a pen correcting signs,” Brockenbrough says. “[But] we do write
funny, tongue-in-cheek letters to grammar offenders. Think of it this
way: If you were walking around with your zipper down, wouldn’t you
feel grateful to the person who kindly pointed that out?”
And while there are myriad motivations behind the impulse to correct —
perfectionism, eagerness to please, payback for eight long years of
the word “nucular,” and perhaps even rampant unemployment — diehard
spelling and grammar snobs insist they’re only trying to help.
“When I go through and mark up a menu, I’m not doing it to humiliate
the person,” says Nickerson. “I just want them to know so they don’t
look uneducated. When it’s your public persona, it’s important to be
accurate.”
And perhaps to remember that nobody’s perfect.
“I once used the word ‘right’ when I meant to say ‘write’ on a
friend’s Facebook wall,” says grammar vandal McCulley. “She’s a
writing professor and immediately wrote back to chide me for using a
homophone. I told her I was going to go put my head in the oven.”
Diane Mapes is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "How to Date
in a Post-Dating World."
.
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