A friend posted this to Facebook yesterday:
My drinking friends are always forwarding stories like this. Sure, booze is good for you. What the hell, if it makes you feel better about your drinking, you have my permission to believe whatever bogus “study” the liquor industry wants you to believe. Bottoms up!
But it isn’t the flagrantly-misleading headline that catches my eye, it’s the blurb below: “New research shows that those who imbibe are less likely to die than those who stay dry.” Less likely to die? Really? You mean it’s possible to live forever? And all I have to do is pour some tequila down my gullet? Where do I sign up?
I see bad writing all the time, but this comes from what is purportedly a journalistic site, presumably written by a professional. Okay, it’s funny … but at the same time enraging. I said so in a comment to my friend’s Facebook post, and to my total surprise she sprang to the author’s defense, saying “I think it’s obvious what was meant.” Over the course of the next two minutes, we exchanged three more comments, at which point she called me a “Grammar Nazi.”
Wow, Facebook friend to Grammar Nazi in two minutes … a personal best! Online arguments often end with the ritual invocation of Hitler, but it usually takes longer. Of course as soon as she called me a Grammar Nazi Godwin’s Law went into effect: me 1, her 0, comment thread closed.
My friend doesn’t think being able to express yourself clearly is important. “I think it’s obvious what was meant.” The hell you say. Tell that to someone trying to read an emergency procedures checklist. Tell that to someone trying to draft a law or take minutes at an important meeting. Tell that to anyone who has to convey, or understand, vital information.
Here’s your task: summarize, in one sentence, the results of a study claiming to show that moderate drinkers live longer than teetotalers. If you can’t do it without flubbing it so badly you wind up saying moderate drinkers can achieve immortality, you shouldn’t be writing professionally. You shouldn’t be writing post-it notes. You shouldn’t have graduated from eighth grade, let alone high school.
Snobby? Yes, but what do you expect from a Grammar Nazi?
You know, though, now that I think about it, Hitler didn’t drink, and he’s dead. So it’s probably a good thing he wasn’t a boozer … otherwise he might still be around, making trouble for everyone. There’s probably a logical fallacy here, but damned if I know what it is. Oh, well, you know what I mean.