Grammar Nazis

I think we should give movie reviewers and sports writers a pass on bad grammar.

It takes a special talent to convert "This movie was all about nothing but here are the names of the two characters you sort of care about" into 1,000 word essays. If they need to stuff some clunky sentences in there, then so be it.

Sports writers have it worse.

Patriots: 13
Rams: 3

Quick! Write a 3,000 word article and have it in by midnight.

James Agee wrote nice movie reviews.

There were and are good movie reviewers, for sure, John Cole. I was just trying to express how insanely difficult it must be to write reviews. You can't have spoilers, and if you get a movie you don't like (almost always), you will struggle to write a long-form review.

For example, I tried to watch Wonder Woman and Seven Samurai. The key word here is tried. I'd be too exhausted to think, much less write, after sitting through either of those movies. If I was assigned to write a 3000 word article on either, I'd be in a bind. One the one hand, I don't want to be a hack, but I also like keeping my job.

Imagine if you had to write a Micheal Bay movie review, knowing your audience is a bunch of popcorn movie fans. You get out of the movie, wishing you saw anything else.

This article has to be huge, all bells and whistles because it's the biggest blockbuster of the summer. You stare at a blank screen for 5 hours and know you have to fill in 5,000 words and write captions for the press release photos. I'd give you a pass if you didn't use the most splendid grammar.

Court rules Oxford comma necessary

Defendants lost for want of an Oxford comma.

The oxford comma should just always be used, in all circumstances, period. It's a silly idea to omit them even when there is no ambiguity. It's one of the stupidest grammar "rules" ever. It's even worse than the one about not beginning sentences with a conjunction.

Just add it to the heap of reasons why the British lost their Empire.

From an article in the Ringer:

The Warriors’ Original Big Three Still Has No Equal

I suppose this is technically correct, if "Big Three" is a singular collective. The articles I looked at make a distinction between group and individual actions involving action verbs, so I can't figure out where this fits in. To me, "has" totally fails the ear test here. What say y'all?

A "Big Three" is a thing in basketball, and it's definitely singular.

If you don't like that headline, this one will definitely trigger you:
10 Greatest Big 3s in NBA History

Bumpity bump! I used to lurk in this thread ages ago and finally have something to contribute.

This is from the HBO show The Wire. It's a simple punctuation error. But in this show, every little detail is relevant or tangentially related to some other plot line, even an errant apostrophe on a sign in the background. In an earlier season, there is a big discussion about how police officers can't write, spell, or punctuate in their reports. It seems that they can't punctuate properly on their in-house notices, either.

I've just started reading through this thread. It seems like we have a global crises!

Everyone should contact they're Attorney Generals and ask them to put a preposition on the ballot to increase funding for teaching correct grammer.

Sorry, that's about all the more cleverer I can be.

:facepalm:

As Trump tweeted: Happy President's Day.

I'm only up to page 46, but has anyone mentioned neither/nor not being used when it should? In other words,

X is neither green nor yellow

as opposed to the more common

X is not green or yellow

As I understand it, the latter is the same as writing "X is not green", because "not" only modifies "green". The former specifies that X can be anything other than green or yellow.

(?)

I'm not sure that's correct. It seems "not" modifies both green and yellow.

I don't think so, but don't have a source. Seems as if it would have to be "X is not green and not yellow" for "blue" to be true, but "yellow" false.

Which is the whole point of neither/nor, I think.

Symbolically, !(G || Y) == !G && !Y, but I think what I wrote is (!G) || Y.

I don't know why I think that parsing is correct either.

golddog is bald and fatgolddog is bald or fat
golddog is not bald and fat
golddog is not bald or fat


What do you think the last statement means?

I'm not sure why, but no one seems to know when to use "less" and when to use "fewer" anymore.

I think the last statement is properly written as, "golddog is neither bald nor fat"*.

I think most people would interpret it that way, but for the grammar nits I think "not" only modifies bald. But I'm not sure of that.

*For some definitions of 'fat'. Definitely not in shape; probably could stand to lose 8-10 pounds.

Just always use the Oxford comma, without exception, and you'll never be misunderstood. Most real writers settled that years ago, including those who edit the Chicago style guide. In the rare case where omitting it leaves no chance of ambiguity, that's the exception, not the rule.

I think nowadays clear meaning and comfort on the ears are what matters here, rather than the strict formal rule. Yes, "fewer" is still reserved only for plural countable things. But the use of "less" is much more flexible in modern speech and should not be restricted only to singular or non-countable things.

For example, "less" sounds better when referring to measures of time and distance, because when you say "10 minutes" or "10 miles" we aren't really counting something there. It's sounds awkward to say you have "fewer than 10 minutes" left. You could also put money in this category with time and distance. Don't say "I have fewer than 10 dollars", because less just works better. We think of the "10 dollars" as a singular bulk amount, not as a count of ten times one dollar.

Also in cases using the negative "no less than", this usually works better than "no fewer than" even when referring to plural countable things.

There are lots of other cases where "less" just works better in modern usage even when it breaks the rule.

I agree with the above completely. But I still prefer "fewer" when it's called for in most cases.

Especially when some twit with 40 cases of Diet Pepsi claims they are only one item.

I don't mind the "ten minutes or less" thing, but my students and everyone on social media are saying things like "less than ten touchdowns."

It's wrong. Period.