Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Grammar police

After making the unfortunate mistake of watching a rerun of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" tonight, I came away with but one simple request: If you're going on television, please use proper grammar and/or vocabulary words. Well thought-out sentences might also be nice.


Here are things that made me cringe after just one episode:
  • "I needed to excape from things..." (Second biggest grammatical pet peeve on the list just after people who say "expecially.")
  • "I don't really know the 'pacifics' of what happened." (I think she meant to say, "I don't know the specifics of what happened.")
  • "I have had some trouble with the Hummer. What can I say? It's a Hummer."
  • "She's doing good."
  • "We're going to the ranch... if you wanna' come out to the ranch, we'll leave the clicker." (I still don't know what a "clicker" is. Garage door opener, perhaps? Remote control? Small chicken?)
  • "I started taking 'rill' estate classes..." (Pronunciation is our friend, too.)
  • "We're sisters, but we don't fight... I don't think we've ever foughten."
These are the same people who complain that moving into a $1.9 million home after living in a $3.5 million home is "downsizing" and an example of falling on unsuccessful "hard times." I should have known better than to continue watching.

4 comments:

NinjasOfLoretto said...

it's pretty shockingly bad...but like all reality tv, it is "train wreck bad" in that i just feel compelled to watch and cannot look away.

i notice it does leave me with a lot of anger though. and it makes adam look like his head is going to explode so we're going to try to not watch it anymore.

marketingcommando said...

Dear Holly,

Let us also recognize the word is "supposedly", not "supposebly". In addition, please "ask" me a question, do not "ax" me anything.

Darren

Daniel Garrity said...

I agree with you that people's lack of precision in speaking and writing is deplorable.

My company created an online tool that can definitely help improve people's writing (we can't do anything for the spoken word, even if they 'ax' us nicely).

The tool is called Virtual Editor (www.veditor.net) and it's an automated grammar and style checker.

The tool is very simple to use, it's fast, and it's free. You simply visit the website (www.veditor.net), enter your email address, and upload a document for checking - that's it. Within a few minutes Virtual Editor will email you a report that highlights all the issues it found with suggestions on how to fix the issues.

I encourage you and your blog readers to try it. They have nothing to lose except split infinitives, pleonasms, and many other grammar and style problems.

Holly B. said...

Great! Thanks! I'll have to check that out, though my grammar will never be as bad as on this show. :)