Vector Mornington of Tweedsville, Ohio, reports that the town council has just approved the hiring of a grammar watchdog to work under Police Chief Deke Reese. The duties of this new protector and guardian of the people will be to watch out for outrageous and malicious incidents of vile and indecent misuse of English grammar.
In view of the widespread violations currently permeating the nation, the state, and this community, says Captain Reese, we will be instituting our corrective procedures only gradually. We will be asking our educated citizens, if in fact any can be found, to keep their eyes and ears open and report violations to this department.
We will start with four of the most common desecrations of the language. These are:
1) at Placing the word "at" at the end of a sentence. For example "Where is she at?"
2) go ahead Using "go ahead" before any verb. For example: "I'm going to go ahead and go".
3) like Placing "like" in the middle of a sentence for no reason whatsoever. For example: "The child was like out of control".
4) stuff Using "stuff" in place of a real word. For example: "The boys were misbehaving and stuff".
For the first 30 days anyone caught saying or writing any of these words will be admonished and given a warning. After thirty days a ticket will be issued, requiring the paying of a fine of $30.00 payable at the Police Station or at the office of the English Department of the local High School. This fine is doubled for persons who have graduated high school, and tripled for school teachers.
We are going to go ahead and like add more words and stuff where we find them at.
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Comments: 30
Gee whiz, fixin' is jest plain ole standard Ozark language! Do you object to "put a pig in a poke and tote it to town" as well? You just condemned my aunt Alma, who acquired a lifetime teacher's certificate after graduating ninth grade and passing the test.
My father talked about going into a restaurant in France in WW I and one of the soldiers ordered spuds. Their waitress had a great laugh when she found out what it was.
Actually, I've known very few who were functionally illiterate as they could all read their necessary items. But I've known bunches who sounded illiterate. I've also know persons who sounded illiterate but in the right company it disappeared and they sounded like a college graduate with a degree in English.
The four examples you gave are a good starting point as they do tend to irritate. However, many of the young people so sold on these actually know better and can remove them at will.
And I'm jealous of the comma-using Gatherers who don't have to fight with their comma button. My comma button doesn't work.
p.s ... how many of us replying to this message took extra care with what they were typing? I did.
and then I gave up.
a grammar 102 game