{"id":8720,"date":"2012-01-11T16:47:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T23:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=8720"},"modified":"2012-01-11T16:49:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T23:49:20","slug":"grammar-nazi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=8720","title":{"rendered":"Grammar Nazi"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend posted this to Facebook yesterday:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My drinking friends are always forwarding stories like this.\u00a0 Sure, booze is good for you.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Bottoms up!<\/p>\n

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.”\u00a0 Less likely to die?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 You mean it’s possible to live forever?\u00a0 And all I have to do is pour some tequila down my gullet?\u00a0 Where do I sign up?<\/p>\n

I see bad writing all the time, but this comes from what is purportedly a journalistic site, presumably written by a professional.\u00a0 Okay, it’s funny … but at the same time enraging.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 Over the course of the next two minutes, we exchanged three more comments, at which point she called me a “Grammar Nazi.”<\/p>\n

Wow, Facebook friend to Grammar Nazi in two minutes … a personal best!\u00a0 Online arguments often end with the ritual invocation of Hitler,\u00a0 but it usually takes longer.\u00a0 Of course as soon as she called me a Grammar Nazi Godwin’s Law<\/a> went into effect: me 1, her 0, comment thread closed.<\/p>\n

My friend doesn’t think being able to express yourself clearly is important.\u00a0 “I think it’s obvious what was meant.”\u00a0 The hell you say. Tell that to someone trying to read an emergency procedures checklist.\u00a0 Tell that to someone trying to draft a law or take minutes at an important meeting.\u00a0 Tell that to anyone who has to convey, or understand, vital information.<\/p>\n

Here’s your task: summarize, in one sentence, the results of a study claiming to show that moderate drinkers live longer than teetotalers.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 You shouldn’t be writing post-it notes. You shouldn’t have graduated from eighth grade, let alone high school.<\/p>\n

Snobby?\u00a0 Yes, but what do you expect from a Grammar Nazi?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You know, though, now that I think about it, Hitler didn’t drink, and he’s dead.\u00a0 So it’s probably a good thing he wasn’t a boozer … otherwise he might still be around, making trouble for everyone.\u00a0 There’s probably a logical fallacy here, but damned if I know what it is.\u00a0 Oh, well, you know what I mean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend posted this to Facebook yesterday: My drinking friends are always forwarding stories like this.\u00a0 Sure, booze is good for you.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Bottoms up! But it isn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,27,2,6,21],"tags":[512],"class_list":["post-8720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-memes","category-personal","category-a-series-of-tubes","category-words","tag-godwins-law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8720"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8744,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8720\/revisions\/8744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}