Monday, January 12, 2009
We feels badly about bad grammer
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
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Last week's column about grammar nitpicks generated two types of responses.
First, were those who wanted to tell me their own favorite nits to pick.
Secondly, those who wanted to nitpick me personally.
From the first batch came a great idea from Joyce Hodges of Salem.
"Let your readers vote on the worst," she suggested. She then kicked things off by voting for the mix-up of "your" and "you're."
So ... what's you're vote for the most maddening common grammar mistake? Sentence fragments? When a group of singular nouns are paired with a plural verb? Bad use of apostrophe's? Too many, commas? People who feel badly?
I'll collect your responses and we'll see if there's one we all hate, or if our loathing is scattered among many. E-mail me at tomangleberger@yahoo.com and I'll report the results in two weeks.
Now, we come to my own flub. Is there anything worse than making a grammar mistake in a column about grammar mistakes?
Yes, there is: enduring the wrath of sharp-eyed readers who catch the mistake. Actually, I only felt wrath from one reader. The others were pretty nice about it.
In last week's very unique column about grammar nitpicks, I ended by saying that if people would choose their words more carefully, both the reader and myself would be pleased.
Too bad I didn't choose my words more carefully. Apparently, using "myself" in that situation is not only wrong, but it makes reader Anna Roseland "crazy." Sorry about that.
The worst of it is, I fell into the old trap of trying to make my words sound extra fancy. If I had just written "the reader and I," everything would have been fine. But I tried to put on airs and fell on my face.
One reader, Judy Hensley, gave me the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that I had made the blunder on purpose to test my readers.
Betty Price gave me the full grammar lesson.
"I hope you will forgive the teacher in me wanting to take out my little 'red pen' and get after you," she wrote. "Since '-self' can neither DO anything or RECEIVE anything without being in the reflexive position -- 'I did it myself' -- or in the intensive position -- 'I myself did it' -- then -self is misused."
Frankly, that's over my head. I'm an armchair nit-picker, not an actual grammarian. So I checked with Virgil Cook, English professor emeritus at Virginia Tech. He confirmed that I had made a mistake and passed on a rule to help me the next time around.
"In an advanced composition [class] at Roanoke College, Perry F. Kendig taught me never to be afraid of 'I.' I have tried to live by that rule."
That sounds good to I.
And to follow up on last week's other question, I heard from Fincastle farmer Sam Guerrant.
"A few years ago I lost a registered angus bull to lightning," he wrote. "He was in an open field with no trees near him. He was fried on the spot."
Now here comes the weird part: Vultures wouldn't eat the "fried" bull.
"One buzzard took one bite or peck or what ever you want to call it. That was it, no more buzzards. If one buzzard will not eat something, none of them will."
With nature's morticians unwilling to do their work, Guerrant was left with a 1,600-pound carcass that had to be hauled away and buried.
Another reader, Yvonne Baugh, e-mailed me an excerpt from the Senior News, which noted a 40-cow lightning disaster in 2008 just down the road in Burkes Garden.
If you've got something on your mind, e-mail it to tomangleberger@yahoo.com or leave it on my voice mail at 777-6476 (please be sure to speak clearly and spell your name). I'll need your name, location and phone number or e-mail address.
