Friday, October 19, 2007

Today's Grammar "Lesson"

In my short-lived job at the little local town newspaper, I spent a lot of my time deleting unnecessary quotation marks from submitted articles. So you can imagine how much I appreciate my new discovery: The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

If you are a grammar nerd like myself or even if you just enjoy misused quotation marks, you'll find some real gems here. Some of my favorites include: a sarcastic welcome to a business park, a birthday card recipient whose parents love him ironically, and a meditation on the nature of the Divine.

It bothers me that the blogger incorrectly places her end quotation marks inside commas and periods, but I've been trained to nitpick. We all make grammatical errors, some are just more hilarious than others.

Other fun sites mocking grammar errors: Engrish.com (I actually own one of their mouse pads and a shirt with an Engrish quote), Apostrophism, Why A Tittle?, Literally, A Web Log.

3 comments:

hayumbone said...

Beth, I feel like I've asked you this before but can't remember: Have you read Eats, Shoots and Leaves? It's worth opening just for Frank McCourt's introduction. My copy came with stickers that said "The Panda Says No!" for posting on especially egregious errors.

One of my pet peeves: seeing the word "bus" misspelled in its pluralized form ON THE SIDE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUSES, i.e., "busses." And, yes, there are some in Chicago. It makes me cringe on a regular basis.

Watoosa said...

Oh, that's right. I need to read Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Thanks for the reminder!

Busses. Ugh.

hayumbone said...

It's bad. And on a school bus.