The Power of Books

Photo... art thingie.

I don't remember ever diagramming sentences (but I was fascinated by the concept as seen in the Little House books, same as flea and Sophia), but we were drilled in identifying what the various parts of speech were, as well as the rules of grammar (never end a sentence with a preposition, never start with a conjuction, etc.). Nice to see that the English classes are bringing grammar back, though! From that article:

Grammarians are regarded as a rather grumpy lot. They decorate their classrooms with quotation marks rather than quotations, brood for hours over the staff memo that misuses the contraction "it's" and ply students with unpardonable puns. Greiner, in a recent lesson, elicited groans by invoking Santa's workshop while discussing the subordinate clause.

We're not grumpy--we're precise! We are also fun, as demonstrated by said use of grammar puns. Finally, as "it's" being misused is my biggest pet peeve, I have no problems with this description.

(2) I shit you not -- he uses commas instead of periods to make the ellipses.

I've seen that around the interweb,,,,,,,it's weird.

Finally, as "it's" being misused is my biggest pet peeve, I have no problems with this description.

Yeah, I've been seeing this problem more and more. Or else it's annoying me more than it used to. Mostly I see it on geeky computer sites like Slashdot and Digg, but I've been seeing it crop up more company websites too.

ION, Spock's mom had died: [link]

Jane Wyatt, the television actress best known to SF fans for playing Spock's mother in the original Star Trek series, has died, the Associated Press reported. She was 96.

Wyatt died Oct. 20 in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Bel Air, Calif., her publicist, Meg McDonald, told the AP. She experienced health problems since suffering a stroke at 85, but her mind was sharp until her death, her son Christopher Ward told the wire service.

Wyatt played Amanda Grayson, the human mother of the starship Enterprise's half-Vulcan science officer, in the original series episode "Journey to Babel" and reprised the role in the 1986 movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

To the broader audience, Wyatt was best known as Robert Young's TV wife, Margaret Anderson, on the 1950s series Father Knows Best.

[link]

I see "it's" and "its" being misused everywhere, including in the scholarly pubs I edit, and it drives me mad. Haven't yet seen ,,,,,, for which I am grateful.

Something I see so often that I start to question my own understanding--it's the 80s, right? Not the 80's? That apostrophe keeps popping up when whatever's being pluralised seems a little outside the norm. ICBM's, and all that.

Something I see so often that I start to question my own understanding--it's the 80s, right? Not the 80's?

Yes. I actually used to do it the wrong way, but I stopped after someone pointed it out here.

If you want to get anal, it should really be '80s. (The apostrophe replaces what's missing from the year.)

Much of my email comes from physicians. Grammar apparently is not a required course in medical school.

A frequent trash item in my mailbox the last couple weeks has 'serious letter you must to read' as the subject. Cracks me up every time.

I am not the queen of the properly placed comma, but I try to proof at least once before I hit send. Not here so much as with business stuff.

eta: I don't know what she is coughing about,,,,

it's the 80s, right? Not the 80's

Well the Chicago MoS and MLA format would say that in fact it's the '80s.

ETA: Anal x-post!