WC's comment to an earlier post about errors in a school district manual reminded me of a photo I saw about a year ago. A friend had taken a photos at a local school. In one of the classrooms, the teacher had posted all the students' birthdays on the wall. It was a very cheery and personable display. The title about the birthdays read, "OUR BIRTHDAY'S." Aaarrrgh! For those of you who are apostrophically (good one, huh?) challenged, here is the lesson for the day:
Apostrophes are not used to indicate plurality.
Apostrophes are used to show possession and in contractions.
(I can't think of any other uses right now. Can you?)
Consider the following examples:
Jessica's birthday is in January.
Jordan's birthday is in January.
Their birthdays are in January.
My initial instinct was to call the school to point out the error, but I never did. I figured that the call taker would find me arrogant and rude, and the offending teacher would suffer embarrassment. Still, it haunts me that the students saw the error everyday and thought it was correct, since, after all, the teacher posted it.
I am led back to reactions to my BT blog. One blogger was insistent that it is rude to point out others' errors and it is best to be courteous and keep quiet - "unsolicited critique is rude." What do you think about this situation?
10 comments:
The defenders of the users of inappropriate grammar and word useage always say that one is being rude and discourteous to point out those errors. It doesn't matter how courteously or even humorously one offers constructive criticism to help others sound or write with more acuity, it hurts someone's widdle feelings and makes them feel stupid.
The 'poor grammar Quixotes' are usually very rude about calling the correctors to task. They are usually passive-aggressives who, under the pretense of 'defending the innocent', want to be seen as a 'nice' person, which justifies their own rudeness and incompetence. Yawn. They are yammering emoting bores, who insist that being superficially and falsely 'nice' is far more important than being correct. As one of my friends says, "Never argue with an idiot. He'll beat you down and wear you out with experience."
It took me a minute to figure out how to pronounce the "apostrophorically" word! LOL Good one. Hope I spelled it right! Grin Maybe you should have simply spoken privately with the teacher... although she would probably have gotten defensive and argumentative as well. Refer to above quote...
You've got some grammar issues of your own.
It's not "everyday." It's "every day."
"Everyday" must modify something.
Examples:
I blog about grammar every day.
This isn't your everyday grammar blog.
Another problem from this blog entry:
"A friend had taken a photos at a local school."
Also, in your profile, your mention "first graders." That should be hyphenated.
Examples:
Those first-graders are smart.
I was smart when I was in first grade.
Inkerous, you got me on "everyday." That was a slip. However, I disagree with you on the first-grader issue. I believe that "first-grader" and "first grader" are both acceptable; the hyphen is a matter of preference. As an adjective, we would hyphenate first-grade, as in first-grade student. In nouns such as first grader, both ways are acceptable.
"First grader" might be acceptable to some people. It's not acceptable to me, and it's not acceptable to some of the nation's top editors, including those at Scholastic Press (the nation's leading children's book publisher).
And watch those Oxford commas. Those aren't "acceptable" either.
Inkerous, I can see that it will be pointless to argue with you, so I won't. I will just say that Scholastic is not THE authority that supercedes all others. Besides, searches on the Scholastic website yield numerous results for "first grader." As for my Oxford commas, I will champion the Oxford comma until my dying breath. Moreover, you are missing my point entirely, much like the BT bloggers referenced earlier. I am not pointing out every small mistake, especially those that arguably are not mistakes. My intent is to highlight frequent and common misunderstandings. Stop yer nitpickin'.
Thank you for helping me prove my point.
Of course, you found instances of "first grader" unhyphenated on the Scholastic site. Even though "first-grader" is preferred, people make mistakes. It's bound to happen. We all slip up from time to time. Everybody needs an editor.
You say that I'm nitpickin', and you're right. But I'm only giving you a taste of your own medicine. I'm also trying to get the following message across: grammar, usage and style are not set in stone. There are so many stylebooks used by so many organizations: Chicago style, Strunk & White, The Associated Press, etc.
What's wrong to one person is totally acceptable to another, and I hope you'll keep this in mind before pointing out others' errors on your blog. There's a world of difference between writing for published material and a blog entry full of Internet speak.
I think that as far as correcting the school teacher, you probably should have. Yeah she probably would have fought you about it, but I bet she wouldn't have make that mistake again. I can't tell you how many times my wife comes home (she is a teacher) with stories like the one you've shared.
Everybody makes mistakes, but nobody should point them out. Um yeah, whatever.
"There's a world of difference between writing for published material and a blog entry full of Internet speak."
And Four Eyes has made that point - also noting in her "do respect" blog that it was the BT that printed that. World of difference? Not so much - and certainly not when editors and proofreaders of the printed word casually drift over poorly written articles and allow them to be published just because SpellCheck said it was ok. And occasional laziness is a far cry from persistent - and rabidly defended - incompetence.
Thanks for playing.
This is what I use to explain apostrophe usage to my (thirteenth-grade) students: http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
I happened across your blog while I was looking for another one. I appreciate mildly cantankerous grammarians. Good on yer.
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