Grammar Gaffs

An update on National Grammar Day contest winners:

"The Origin of Third Person in Paleolithic Epic Poetry" by Gerald Warfield was the winner of the 2011 National Grammar Day short story contest. (Watch Gerald read the story himself in this YouTube Video.)

Read the other top entries:

First Runner Up “When Mr. Brown Met Miss Fox: A Love Story” by Rich Russell
Honorable Mention “When Ellipses Meet” by Michael Kroth
Honorable Mention “March Forth” by Sandy Listorti

Is it a grammar revolution?  (from Why Palin doesn't need National Grammar Day by Robert Day Greene)

Friday is National Grammar Day, a commemoration of sorts begun in 2008 by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. The cheerful grammarphiles there have written a song promoting their cause, but while having fun, they're also doing good.

Their website, for example, knocks down two old myths: that you can't end a sentence in a preposition and that you mustn't split an infinitive. Fine English writers have been doing both for centuries.

At the same time, the good folks at the society have made a playlist of songs with titles that offend their sense of grammar, such as Bob Dylan's "Lay, Lady, Lay," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" from the Rolling Stones and "Who Do You Love" by Bo Diddley. It's all in fun -- would anything be more ridiculous than Diddley singing "Whom Do You Love"?

But the group has put its finger on a common concern: Is our language going to heck in a handbasket, and are our celebrities and leaders, people whom Americans look up to, misusing it more and more? The answer, to many, is a clear yes.

Take former President George W. Bush. The leader of the free world, the most powerful man on Earth, spent eight years in the White House mangling language so memorably that one writer, Jacob Weisberg of Slate, made a one-man industry of "Bushisms," available in book and calendar form.

Everyone has a favorite. Mine is probably this: "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." A close second was the president's public concern about out-of-control medical malpractice lawsuits: "We got issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their, their love with women across this country."

Bush knew that language skill was important: As he put it, "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." At the first National Grammar Day, in 2008, he sent a congratulatory letter to the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. The group (ironically?) posts it prominently at nationalgrammarday.org. At least Bush has a sense of humor. He once admitted,"In my sentences I go where no man has gone before." It's true: The man has talent.

Some people see the second coming of Bush in another Republican, Sarah Palin. The former Alaska governor made Twitter twitter when she called on peaceful Muslims to "refudiate" the mosque near ground zero.

Grammar Corner

1. I usually  (go) to school by bus. 2. Yesterday morning I  (get) up at 6.30. 3. We needed some money so we  (sell) our car. 4. "  she ever  (be) to Spain?" 5. "What  Peter  (do) now?" 6. Please don't make so much noise. I  (study). 7. Water  (boil) at 100 degrees Celsius. 8. Carol often  (learn) with her father. 9. Now Ron  (phone) Jill again. It  (be) the third time he  (phone) her this evening. 10. It  (rain) now. It  (begin) raining two hours ago. So it  (rain) for two hours. 11.  you  (hear) anything from Tom since Christmas? 12. "  it  (rain)?" she always  (ask) me. 13. "  you  (go) out last night?" 14. New York  (be) one of the largest cities of the world. 15. This house  (cost) 35.000 pounds in 1980.