March 4 is National Grammar Day. John McIntyre, assistant managing editor at the Baltimore Sun fears grammarians and copy editors will soon be taking to the streets to exact their sweet revenge:
Some will have nothing to fear. People who use ain’t in casual conversation will walk the streets unmolested. People who write all their e-mail to friends in lowercase letters, with punctuation in commas when there is punctuation at all, will not see their message traffic interrupted. Hip-hop musicians, both professional and amateur, and teenagers who use texting slang in conversation will — OMG! OMG! — not feel the hand of authority clamp on their shoulders.
But others, and their whereabouts are known, will be weighed in judgment and found wanting. Bureaucrats who pile noun modifier upon noun modifier upon noun to confuse the public. College students who think that standard spelling is merely an option for their papers. Perpetrators of misplaced modifiers. Reporters who have never mastered its/it’s or who/whom. English teachers who have perpetuated nonsensical and non-idiomatic “rules” of grammar and usage. Composition teachers who encourage their students in expression while ignoring the traditions of grammar and rhetoric. For them, the sands are running out.
Of course, I deplore their methods, and yet…and yet….
(H/T: Language Log)
