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Old 07-29-2014, 04:06 PM
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tedquick tedquick is offline
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Default Slaughtered English

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueash View Post
Weird Al Yankovic has just released a brilliant new song about grammar which everyone should enjoy. See the video "Word Crimes" and a commentary

“Weird Al” Yankovic “Word Crimes” video: Evaluating the “Blurred Lines”/Robin Thicke parody’s rules of usage.
The Weird Al piece is wonderful!! It moves so quickly, however that it deserves at least a second, if not a third, viewing.

Most of today’s problems are a result of what many of us refer to as “government schools”. It’s more likely that they’ll be discussing sex education than teaching, what most of us old timers refer to as, proper English. There is a very popular morning radio show here in Omaha and two of the best announcers/talk people consistently use a comparative in place of the correct superlative, such as “They were the better team . . .”, when there are dozens of teams instead of only two. Lately, on the evening news, I’ve heard two or three of the most prominent weather personalities say, “you can expect ‘seasonable’ weather today”, instead of ‘seasonal’. And the list could go on.

My mother was an English teacher so she pounded The King’s English into my head. Being slightly OCD anyway I am embarrassed when I make errors of any kind and have given all of my friends, and particularly my wife, permission to correct me, in fact, I ask them to. For whatever it is worth, I am giving any/all who read my posts permission to let me know when I mess up. I have always learned best from my errors.

Even though in my own little world I am still controlled by my addiction to correctness, it is vastly more important that accurate communication be taking place than it is to always be grammatically correct. I try to keep that in mind each time I hear proper English being mutilated and disrespected.