The Grammar Police

Thanks to Shiny Rod for the inspiration for this blog entry.

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There are those who take it upon themselves to tsk tsk at our grammatical errors. Even MS Word has a grammar checker (which is one of the signs of the apocolypse). To them I say “Take it down the hall to someone who gives a shit.”. If the meaning is clear, then get out of my grill. Here are some examples:

Good vs. Well:

This one is the gold standard of grammar. If you say/write “good” instead of “well”, you will be barred by the Grammar Police from membership in the Good Writers Club of North America. And that would be bad.

As I understand it, "good" is an adjective, meaning that it applies to nouns. As in good shot, good sex, and good bowel movement.

Whereas "well" is an adverb, meaning that it applies to verbs. As in you shot the ball very well Mr. Johnson, you pleasured me very well Mrs. Johnson, and well I hope Mr. Johnson does not find out about Mrs. Johnson's pleasuring me.

But there is a gray line. "Good" and "Well" are sometime used interchangeably. As an example: “I did good on the grammar exam.” vs. “I did well on the grammar exam.” Both of these statements are understandable. In fact, the former actually sounds better than the latter. The latter sounds like it was uttered by some dysfunctional rich kid from Chestnut Hill.

Double Negatives:

I can’t understand why the Grammar Police don’t stop complaining about this. There isn’t one example that doesn’t make sense. As the good Lord says, aren’t we supposed to not judge people? There is no way that I don’t violate this grammatical rule.

Ending Sentences with a Preposition:

I have no idea what this means. I looked it up on the web and apparently it is not that bad. From what I understand, it may lead to premature ejaculation, but that’s about it. But the Grammar Police will get you. Don’t end sentences with whatever prepostions are!

Pause…

OK, I ran out of grammar rules. Because they suck and I am not that interested. But since I have already started this post, here are some more grammar rules that irritate the crap out of me. Courtesy of GrammarBook.com. Home of the anal retentives.

Editor’s note: This is fun. Like shooting catfish in a barrel. Here’s more.

“Use only one space following periods, commas, semicolons, colons, exclamation points, question marks, and quotation marks.” Screw you, I will use as many spaces as I feel are appropriate. And. punctuation, marks; as: required!

“Who refers to people. That and which refer to groups or things.” That which I am writing about is a group of people who need to get out more often.

“Use a question mark only after a direct question.” WTF?

“Who vs. Whom: Use the he/him method to decide which word is correct.” Who farted in here? Can whom just take it in the other room?

“An en dash, roughly the width of an n, is a little longer than a hyphen. It is used for periods of time when you might otherwise use to.” No, I am not making this up. Check it out for yourselves. http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/dashes.asp

“Use the colon after a complete sentence to introduce a list of items when introductory words such as namely, for example, or that is do not appear.” My colon is used for one thing, and one thing only: pooping, number 2, pinching a loaf, seeing a man about a horse, taking a shit.

Grammar police: you suck.