Amazing! Typing Doesn't Ruin Grammar!

Over the last couple of days, the media have reported rather breathlessly the conclusion that IM does not destroy teenagers' grammar skills. Now, the spin is that using instant messaging might actually help:

Linguistics researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered that new communication technologies such as instant messaging and SMS are actually
helping teenagers develop their spelling and grammar skills.

Teens are showing their ability to use a mastery of both formal and informal language when chatting online or via a cell phone.

“What these kids are doing is showing us that they have a really good command of the English language, so much so that I was really blown away by how fluidly they operate,” commented linguistics professor, Sali Tagliamonte, of the University of Toronto. “[Parents] might as well worry about who those kids are talking to, not how they are saying what they are saying.”

In our other guise, SPOGG reported something similar several years ago, not backed up with science, of course, but with something equally useful: common sense.

You'd never say a teenager who'd become fluent in German was running the risk of ruining his English grammar. You'd be impressed he could keep the rules straight in more than one language. Internet shortcuts are a little like that. As long as they're used in the right context, they're a good thing.

Here's to any technology that gets kids writing to each other, and here's to teenagers, for once again proving themselves not as mush-brained as grownups think.

A Grammar Quiz

A friend of SPOGG wrote this quiz; we are proud to report we scored 100 percent.

We Had No Idea...

Check out how many grammar hotlines there are. Outstanding!

The Other Shoe Drops...

This comes from a blog called "Drunk and Single in NYC":

I will do anything to get my wedding announcement in the Times. Including going $40K into debt in order to ensure my fitness among the competition. And the truth of the matter is that my pedigree is not that impressive. I have to compensate using educational and professional achievement in order to make up for my families’ blue collar past.

Or so I thought.

With that degree from Oxford in hand, it looks like I am a shoe-in. Even if I marry an electrician.

It should be shoo-in. As in, "Shoo, fly! Don't bother me." Not "shoe-in," as in "He put a shoe in my ass after I missed my deadline."

Furthermore:

I’ve begun to notice a disturbing trend. I remember the days where my mother and I used to read about the couples, excited to see the closest semblance to our family: a couple whose pedigree included a tiny New England college as opposed to the traditional Ivy.

Semblance and resemblance are not synonyms.

Hell in a Handbasket?

Pardon the cliche, but there is so much wrong about this. Yes, it's bad enough that one of the guys who guards the president is getting into a bar fight. But is there no one in the media who can write about it using complete sentences and correct possessives?

Thanks to SPOGG agent Chris McD for sending this:

Waco Police arrest Secret Service agent

Waco Police tasered and arrested a US Secret Service agent at a downtown Waco bar after a scuffle.

The arrest affidavit say the dispute between the special agent and a bar manager at Crickets all got started. (All got started? When? Finish the sentence please. We're waiting.)

Police say there were reports (By whom? Passive voice stinks.) that in the early morning hours of July 21, 30-year-old John Scott Lewis was being rude to some customers at Cricket's Bar and Grill. (Is it Crickets? Or Cricket's? We'll be looking that up shortly.)

Lewis is a special agent with the US Secret Service and is from Crofton, Maryland.

The report and Police (why is this capitalized?) say Lewis got into an argument with the manager and when the manager asked him to leave, Lewis pushed open the front door so hard it cracked.

Two off-duty Waco officers working security tried to arrest Lewis; he resisted, and was tasered one time.

Lewis was charged with Public Intoxication, Reckless Damage, and Resisting Arrest. (We hereby charge you with excessive use of Unnecessary Capital Letters.)

He was treated and released at Hillcrest Hospital and then was booked into the McLennan County Jail.

Lewis posted a 1,000 dollar bond. (Should be $1,000 according to AP Style, but that's nit-picky.)

Officials with the Waco Secret Service division say they will not comment, and the owner of Cricket's isn't speaking either. (Again: Crickets? Or Cricket's? A quick search of the Waco phone book shows this joint is actually called Crickets Grill & Draft House. So, it should be Crickets.)

Your Brain on Grammar

Well isn't this interesting? From The Times of India (no doubt picked up from a newswire somewhere):

LONDON: Your brain may be hardwired to know bad grammar too.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that certain hallmarks of grammar that are present in all languages occur naturally, even among deaf people who create their own languages without any formal training and no previous knowledge of how people go about using words in a way that makes sense to others.

The finding dovetails with other research that shows we are instinctively capable of understanding the fundamentals of geometry, and even babies have a sense of numbers.

It all suggests we have a birthright that should guarantee our ability to cope with a world in which we are constantly confronted with annoying things like unbalanced checkbooks and, of all things, poor grammar.

Elissa Newport, professor of brain and cognitive sciences and linguistics at the University of Rochester, and Marie Coppola, a postdoctoral student at the University of Chicago, reached their somewhat surprising conclusion about grammar after spending eight years studying three Nicaraguan boys who were born deaf and had no formal education and absolutely no exposure to language, other than that which they created themselves.

They had not even been exposed to signing, the gestural-based form of communication used by deaf people. So like other children around the world, they developed their own sign language, or home-sign system.

During the research, the boys were shown a total of 66 short videos consisting of single actions, such as a woman walking or a man smelling flowers. Then, using their own signing language, the boys described what they had seen.

Significantly, all three boys consistently used the grammatical construction of "subject" the same way it is used in languages around the world.

Newport, whose previous research showed that the learning curve for language is very sharp and begins very early in life, says the notion of "subject" is considered a hallmark of grammatical systems because it is used the same way in all languages.

That has long puzzled linguists, but the Rochester research suggests one reason why that may be the case. Our brains seem hardwired for grammar, which is a bit surprising because we so often get it wrong. Although the idea of "subject" as a grammatical construction may seem simple, it's really very complex and difficult to define, Newport says.

A Letter to Lindsay Lohan

We love this letter to Lindsay Lohan, but wish the Hollywood bigwig who wrote it had remembered that punctuation goes inside the quotation marks.

The exceptions:

1) With semicolons and colons:

• He loved "Les Miserables"; it was "Phantom of the Opera" he could not stand. (Idiot!)

2) When question marks or exclamation points apply to the whole sentence, and not just to the part quoted:

• Are you the star of "Nacho Libre"?

Gossip and Grammar: Incompatible?

From Defamer:

It took Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" a week to formulate a response to Steely Dan's accusation that the actor was currently starring in a movie whose premise was lifted from one of their songs (and the thinly veiled threat of violence at the hands of a certain Russian associate of the band), but The Stallion, always a peaceful sort, finally chose to diffuse the tension with his shaggy-maned sense of humor.

In a statement released by his spokeswoman, Ina Treciokas, Wilson said:

"I have never heard the song 'Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr. Steely Dan, is. I hope this helps to clear things up and I can get back to concentrating on my new movie, 'HEY 19.'"

Defamer, the word is "defuse." Though, in your defense, the Butterscotch Stallion didn't alleviate the tension, as much as he spread it around.
This bomb should in no way be interpreted as sly commentary on Mr. Wilson's movie. Rather, it is something that can be defused.

Cops and Grammarians

Oh, that the police would someday call us, too....

The Case Against Adam Schein

SPOGG sent this letter today to Adam Schein of Fox Sports. If cliches were cooties, Adam Schein would need a good shavin'.

Dear Mr. Schein,

We are The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, writing to give you the verbal equivalent of a red flag. Sports cliché week is over, Mr. Schein. And yet, you're still using cliches like, well, "nobody's business."

SPOGG has followed your work for months, hoping "against hope" that you'd "clean up your act." Alas, that has not happened.

What follows is the top portion of your most recent story. Clichés are capitalized so that you will be able to see them, in case you left your binoculars at the bottom of the barrel, in your back pocket, or perhaps where the sun don't shine.

And we quote:

Terrell Owens' ability to fit in with the Cowboys should be an interesting STORY TO FOLLOW.

In interviewing Owens this week, I am even more convinced that the receiver is clueless and won't change a bit.

During the 20-minute conversation, Owens took no accountability for his actions in Philadelphia, continuously [you mean continually, SPOGG hopes] blamed the media, his old agent David Joseph, and Donovan McNabb FOR EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN, and HAD THE NERVE TO ACTUALLY SAY Drew Rosenhaus never discussed his contract in public.

And it was made CRYSTAL CLEAR that this was a Jerry Jones transaction.

ALL EYES WILL BE ON Owens' attitude; his rapport with the disciplinarian that is Parcells; his connection with Drew Bledsoe; his demand for the football; and his relationships with coaches and players.

In essence, EVERYTHING THAT WENT SOUR for Owens in Philadelphia.

And the Tuna cannot be happy that he will be PEPPERED with questions early in camp about Owens' new book. [SPOGG wonders: Would the tuna prefer lemon juice and perhaps a sprig of dill?]

Every conversation, fist-bump, high five, etc., between Owens, Parcells and Bledsoe will be shown on the highlight shows and ANALYZED TO DEATH. And with all three pretty headstrong, this is going to be a daily show.

Mr. Schein, you are a writer and broadcaster. Athletes have an excuse for using clichés. Their skills are physical. Sportswriters, meanwhile, are supposed to be as good with words as athletes are on the field. This means less whiffing and more verbal home runs from you, Mr. Schein.

How about it? Can you raise the bar? Start giving 110 percent? Wipe the slate clean of clichés?

Otherwise, we're going to have to start reading that Schatz guy, when we'd much prefer Scheinola.

Sincerely yours,
SPOGG