Believe it or not, today–March 4–is National Grammar Day. To help celebrate this auspicious occasion, and to further grammar education throughout the Internet (always capitalized, incidentally), I have combed through hundreds–maybe even thousands–of blog entries to bring you the following quiz.
What you are about to see are errors of usage I have collected over the past few weeks, saving them up especially for today. The authors shall remain anonymous, and if you happen to recognize your own writing herein, I trust you’ll appreciate that I mean no disrespect, and I sincerely hope you don’t take these examples as a personal affront: I assure you, no such motive exists. All I want to do is illuminate “real-life” examples of “what not to do.”
Some of these are minor, some more serious. All of them detract from the flow of the writer’s ideas, and at least for me, negatively affect my reading experience. Without further ado (not “adieu,” for heaven’s sake!), here are 10 items to test your grammar savvy. The answers are in the footnotes, but try not to read them before figuring out the problems for yourself.
- Do you think it is going to become the new paradigm that Google is pushing it as, or is it going to be the next amazing technology no one uses (ie: Segway)?1
- When I was looking all this up, I was stunned to see that Super Bowl XI (Raiders-Vikings in the Rose Bowl) was played Jan. 9, 1977. Just for comparison sake, this postseason, the first day of the first-round games were played on Jan. 9. (Ed.: The first sentence is for context only.)2
- On Friday night, the Saints’ staff at the combine gathered in a private room at St. Elmo Steakhouse, an 108-year-old Indy landmark….3
- In 2010, National Grammar Day is hosted by Mignon Fogarty the author of the New York Times best-selling book Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing and The Grammar Devotional.4
- Something that solo’s well, can still do dungeons, and can run battlegrounds as well. (Disregard that this is a sentence fragment: It’s a stylistic convention, and works in context.)5
- If it’s a problem with myself, a situation, conflicts, or policy issues, that it be brought up with myself or an officer first to see if it can be resolved.6
- Keep current clients at their usual rate, and only quote your new rate to potential customers that want to work with you.7
- And wtf…we are a community are we not?!8
- WOW’s default UI is not optimal, but we can get around this due to it’s extensibility.9
- First we see that the ability is now a raid wide Aura. Instead of a Self Buff that occurs only when your pet scores a critical hit.10
Thanks for playing! So how’d you do? Again, I want to emphasize my intent here is not to belittle or poke fun at any of the writers. Rather, I simply want to help you (and them) write better. Now, go out and write right!
- In this sentence, ie should be i.e. Even better, replace it with e.g. (for example). Also, replace the colon with a comma. ↩
- “Just for ______ sake” should be possessive; thus, “Just for comparison’s sake….” Better: “Just for the sake of comparison….” Also, the last part of the sentence should read, “…the first day of the first-round games was Jan. 9…” or “…the first-round games were played on (or started on) Jan. 9….” Finally, if I were writing, I’d have said, “When I was looking up all this…” but I’m not going to get hypercritical. ↩
- …St. Elmo Steakhouse, a 108-year-old…. (I told you some of these would be easy!) Incidentally, the plural possessive Saints’ is correct. ↩
- I almost hated to do this, but it’s rather amusing. This comes from the “About the Host” blurb at the National Grammar Day site (linked in the opening paragraph). There should be a comma after Fogarty, and it should be “best-selling books” (plural). ↩
- There is no such thing as a possessive verb: lose the apostrophe in “solos.” ↩
- Myself and similar pronouns are used either intensively (I did the job myself) or reflexively (I hurt myself). In other words, they need a referent; in this case, the pronoun I. Thus, you can’t use myself in the example here, since there is no referent for myself: Instead, the pronoun should be me (in both instances!). Also, there is something missing before “…that it be brought up,” probably something along the lines of “I ask”. That’s more a proofreading issue than a true grammar problem. ↩
- This one is a bit tricky, but it’s an error I see all too frequently. Customers are people, not things; thus, “…customers who want to work with you.” ↩
- This one’s mostly for fun; however, there should be a comma after community. And really, the interrobang is not a recognized punctuation mark; if you’re asking a question, stick with the question mark. If you want to add emphasis to the question (generally not desirable), use italics. But please, don’t conjoin exclamation points and question marks, okay!? ↩
- Consider this a freebie: Once again, it’s is only, and always, a contraction for it is. The possessive its, like any possessive pronoun, never has an apostrophe. If you didn’t catch this one, click the Grammar category here and start from the beginning. *grin* ↩
- Granted, WoW blogs use a lot of jargon that you may not see in “mainstream” blogs; still, even WoW bloggers should know and observe the rules. You might want to put a comma after First in the first sentence, and I won’t argue. But I won’t chastise the writer for the omission, either. But let’s look at the modifier(s) of “Aura” (which I wouldn’t capitalize, but I’ll buy an argument based on style—and jargon. So are we talking “raid Aura”? Possibly. What about a “wide Aura”? Perhaps. Much more likely, however, is a “raid-wide Aura.” Wouldn’t you agree? The “sentence” beginning with “Instead of…” is really a sentence fragment. So what I’d much prefer to see here is, “…a raid-wide aura, instead of a self-buff….” (Yeah, I snuck in an extra hyphen; so did you, right?) ↩
Aiee! Not as many correct as I thought I might. I’m out of practice; I could look at most of those and see *something* was off, but figuring out *what* was beyond me.
That, or not enough time for my morning coffee to kick in… I’ll stick with that explanation. (The alternative is too depressing. For whatever reason, I was the only person in my college English classes who actually knew what proof reading a paper meant, and could do it successfully.)
.-= Marianne´s latest blog post is So why did I leave? =-.
Needz moar koffee…yep, I’ll buy that. You betcha!
Thanks for playing!
On Twitter: @_steve_hall
Aww, lemme’lone… I’m a PROUD product of the California Public School System. (Read: I’m mostly self-taught via reading. >.>)
.-= Marianne´s latest blog post is So why did I leave? =-.
So am I…but back when the California public schools were something to be proud of! (I.e., before you were born.)
On Twitter: @_steve_hall
haha– Though I’m used to being one of the “Old ones” around. I doubt you’re *that* much older than I am >.<
.-= Marianne´s latest blog post is So why did I leave? =-.
How fun!
I did terrible, incidentally. I caught most of the easy ones, but a few of the more difficult ones I actually guessed wrong.
For example, ” [...] the new paradigm that Google is pushing it as, or is it going to be the next amazing technology no one uses (ie: Segway)?” I thought the problem was with the “pushing it as”, not the “ie”
Also, for “Keep current clients at their usual rate, and only quote your new rate to potential customers that want to work with you.” I nailed the comma as the problem. In that sentence, I think the comma is unnecessary, but that’s not the problem you pointed out.
Great exercise! Thank you. <3
.-= Tami´s latest blog post is Roadmaps =-.
Had I been copyediting that story (about Google), I would have vivisected that sentence and reassembled it into something much more readable: You’re spot on, there, Tami.
And that comma is one of those you can leave or omit: writer’s choice. It depends on how you want the reader to pause.
There is probably a more concise or didactic rule regarding commas before conjunctions such as and, but, and or, but I haven’t had coffee yet, and coffee is winning out over research at the moment. 
On Twitter: @_steve_hall
I’m of the “kill it with fire” school of thought on commas, mostly because of my rampant and misuse of them in my formative years. By which I mean yesterday.
Please to be replying to this. I’m almost certain I checked the notify comments box on the last one, but I got no notification. Which means I need to go back and see what OTHER replies I might have been missing lately.
.-= Tami´s latest blog post is Roadmaps =-.
Here is your reply. And I laughed at “By which I mean yesterday.” I have my good days and bad days…no, let me rephrase that: I have my bad days, and my worse days, with commas. *grin* Colons, semicolons, and em dashes are my REAL vices, though.
On Twitter: @_steve_hall
Ha! I refuse to believe you have vices.
Except maybe the semicolon thing. You actually LIKE that bit of punctuation, which is bizarre and not wholly trustworthy.
*eyes narrow* I’m watching you.
Also, email reply came through. *shrugs*
.-= Tami´s latest blog post is Roadmaps =-.
I should totally research it every time I use a semicolon. My biggest vice? Sheer, unadulterated laziness.
On the other hand, wait till you see tomorrow’s word count article.
On Twitter: @_steve_hall
I missed some of the easy ones because I tried to find harder ones. Maybe I’m just becoming numb to poor apostrophe usage.
And I LOVE my em dashes.
Thanks for pulling this together for us!
.-= Kimberly´s latest blog post is Diet Update: Week 8 =-.
On Twitter: @ladygypsy
A grammar quiz??? Grammar day??? What is this??? Haha, just kidding. I was never good at grammar, and apparently still am not now! Haha, no surprises here.
.-= Casey´s latest blog post is Acrylic Picture Frames =-.