by Dr Davis on December 22, 2012
“Grammar Nazis should be extinct” or some such declaration should be appended to this article on “Grammar and Spelling Pedants: This is Why Your [sic] Wrong.”
I like pedants better than Grammar Nazis, although the metaphor does make the person using it lose the argument automatically for most people of any intelligence…. I guess I wanted to say the author is wrong–without having to impugn her.
“Comedians particularly enjoy being oversensitive to grammar and bad phrasing.”
Not teachers, but comedians. Interesting.
Intelligentsia (faux élite) but not professors.
Writers, but not instructors.
I have told my linguistics students (who will be given this post to read this semester, because of the language applications) that I expect the use of the apostrophe in possessives to go away in the next fifty years. Why? Because none of my students, usually including my majors, know how to properly employ the apostrophe. So in fifty years, my writing will seem archaic, because I will probably still use apostrophes and my students who hold onto their papers and grudges for my having marked every little grammar error (not that I did!) will have grandchildren asking them why their professor marked “possessives” on the paper over and over again. Did she not understand?
Language changes over time. That is a natural fact. What is not natural is for the language to become more ambiguous. Wouldn’t it be better/easier/more useful if we changed pronunciations so that to, too, and two were different? Then the language would become less ambiguous.
Maybe not. Maybe simpler is better. But really? When it becomes confusing what a person is actually talking about, won’t that be a problem?
I like archaic words. I’m from Texas and I like y’all, too. Why not use things that disambiguate rather than make less clear?
Grammar Nazis/Pedants or Folks Who Want to Understand what You Mean?
by Dr Davis on December 11, 2012
In my linguistics class this past spring we discussed the disappearing apostrophe. Based on its lack of proper implementation in projected songs at church, announcements, and billboards, as well as in multiple iterations of student papers, I posited an official termination of the apostrophe to show possession within fifty years. Perhaps, had English a college (governing board which decides what is correct) like many other languages do, it would disappear sooner.
Based on the number of missing possessive markers in the last two paper sets I have graded in all my freshman and sophomore papers, the fifty years may have been too generous of a timeline.
Even after direction from me on where to go to learn about possessives (but not actual instruction as I forgot I had planned it), students failed to wield apostrophes or only threw them helter-skelter into their papers wherever an -s ending appeared.
by Dr Davis on April 28, 2012
This is a great website for teaching the semicolon.
by Dr Davis on January 13, 2012
by Dr Davis on November 8, 2011
14 Punctuation Marks that You Never Knew Existed is a delightfully snarky introduction (introduce a snark punctuation mark here) to punctuation marks. Some of them I did not know existed and some of which I did not know the names.
My favorite is the snark, which is used to mark multiple meanings in a text and would be WONDERFUL for text messaging. Unfortunately I can not google how to make a snark with a Mac and find anything that actually shows the punctuation mark.
The one thing that I did think was funny totally, was the comment about the symbol the computer uses to mark paragraphs:
Most people will be familiar with it, though not with the fact that it’s called a Pilcrow. It’s also referred to as “The Blind P,” which sounds like a good name for some hopelessly twee indie band. “Pilcrow” is the Middle English word for “Paragraph.” You will never be able to use that fun fact in real life.
Ha! They don’t know us crazy English teachers, do they? I am going to use this one (and the snark) this next week in class.
I couldn’t get MSWord to show a pilcrow, but there is one on the toolbar or ribbon: 
by Dr Davis on November 3, 2011
I was looking for the word “amanuensis” today and I couldn’t actually remember how to spell it. I knew it had anuensis in it and there was an m, but I couldn’t put those together in a way that Google would tell me how to spell it. So I looked it up on TCE, because I was sure I had written it down here. I hadn’t.
So now I am going to write it here, so that next time I need it, I can find it. (And hopefully I will never need it again because I will have actually committed it to memory this time.)
Meaning: one who is employed to copy a manuscript or take dictation
Kind of like a scribe, but doesn’t necessarily know how to read and write. (This was relevant for the paper I was trying to write notes on, for which I needed the word.)
by Dr Davis on August 3, 2011
by Dr Davis on June 13, 2011
Jody Hedlund has a great article on the topic.
[C]lichéd writing has more to do with laziness than ignorance.
She then talks about clichéd descriptions, characters, and plots.
by Dr Davis on March 17, 2011
You Can Teach Writing has a post “Grammar Check Software Can Make Student Writing Worse.”
I think we all know that.
The post, though, offers a way that students can use grammar checker to help their writing. It involves three picky writing conventions: quotation punctuation, period spacing, and serial commas.
At the college level, a student might take simultaneously two or three courses with different specifications for these three elements. It makes sense to give the computer instructions and let it make sure those instructions are followed. Just remembering to reset the conventions correctly for each course is challenge enough for most students.
Note: The blog does not let you copy and quote. I had to type that in by myself. Annoying.
by Dr Davis on December 9, 2010
The Education of Oronte Churm, from Inside Higher Ed, has the definition of cynicism:
When a university’s program for research in the humanities bars adjuncts from applying for fellowship money and release time then uses their book titles and cover photos to swell the “books published by our humanities faculty†section of its glossy brochure.
The weasel is also from Churm’s post.
Not teachers, but comedians. Interesting.
