February 17, 2012
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Let’s fix The Guy’s grammar…or mebbe not?
As expected, he’s done it again. No sooner did ‘less people’ start ‘wearing a watch’ than the Poster-boi of the Front Page comes out with this.
Now obviously, people of even modest intellect should know that the proper wording is “Who’s you’re daddy?”, or something like that. We’ll let the other gaffes here slide, for now…
Anyway, I do have a small and entirely earnest question for my readers: Should we tell him?
(As opposed to just writing a snarky little entry like this one, here on a backwater site which he studiously has never read in his life. Doing that just smells so, you know, passive-aggressive, and I’m trying to quit that.)
The first, head-on approach (honest confrontation) has at least the small hope of fixing the problem: the embarrassment of having friends see stuff like this on ‘my’ Xanga web platform.
But yes, it may backfire. Cause hard feelings.
Although possibly, if I word my comment like…um…like this:Looks like we had different Dads. Mine taught me, way back before I could even drive a fire-engine, that the contraction for ‘Who is’ is “Who’s” And so always, after we’d finally put the fire out, he’d let me ask the men “Who’s holding whose hose?” In exactly those words. I never forgot it. Wish you’d have been there.
I think it’s kinda mild. Enlightening but not scolding or pedantic.
What does anyone think?
See, no one really knows if he’s really borderline-literate, or just doesn’t care enough not to put errors into every second post. That’s the real question, I guess.
Wu: There went your wanna-be @seedsower Mr Congeniality Badge!
Me: Whadya mean? I planted a ton of lettuce this morning.
Wu: No, I mean, like, why do you need enemies?
Me: Here’s the question, Woozie: Does Johnny also have any rights? To see his second language treated with respect? By headliners at least?
Wu: Maybe. But some day you’re house’ll be on fire, and he’s jus gonna say: “First, lets see who’s house this is. This may take all day…”
Me: I’ll wear a watch, just in case.
Comments (60)
I considered posting a comment about **who’se yer daddy** or something, but figured either nobody would get it or the only response would be about grammar Nazis. Frankly, if we could just corral the grammar sins on xanga to who’s/whose, we’d have the war won. It’s getting worse, not better.
I tried to recommend this, but your rec button doesn’t seem to be working. When it comes to grammar, it’s important to know your shit, lest others start to say you’re shit.
PS: your comment was perfect, if potentially wasted on the wrong crowd.
If I were going to comment on someone’s title, I would say, “your title should say ‘Who’s Your Daddy,’ just FYI.”
But then I would reread my comment about 50 billion times to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently written “Its You’re Daddy,” or something equally embarrassing. Because the only thing worse than looking like a grammar snob is looking like a grammar snob who can’t write the King’s English. (Or is it Kings’? Kings? Or I suppose, these days, “Queen’s”.)
Also, please excuse the numerous comments and footprints. Your headline thing had a link to some post you made about your chickens, and I’m trying to get it to come back.
@blonde_apocalypse - Hmm.. didn’t know that. I’m using a proxy at times here because of the Swedish anti-Israeli server boycott.
On substance: Bingo: (I didn’t leave that comment, preferring to ask cooler and wiser heads here (yes, like you:) what to do. I can be depressed a whole night after reading a title like this, Welt-schmertz, y’know.
@ordinarybutloud - My dear OBL, I haven’t written a post in months without you as a critical playa in the ‘fantasy audience’. Yes, egg-on-da-face syndrome. By me it’s 50 billion re-reads, then delete, cuz I don’t even trust moi for something so critical.
Let’s just be glad your scribbler-competition is of the above calliber (callibre?) F*ck, call it ‘Bullet-size’.
@doahsdeer - Defenutly(sp?) And I’ll consider it ‘Rec’-ed, and by a reputable source indeed. Tnks
If only grammar were the only source of Welt-schmertz.
You speak of the “Swedish anti-Israeli server boycott” as if I should know what it is. I may check it out.
@doahsdeer - Duh, the total clever in you’re comment just hit me. Brilliant.
@jsolberg - I’ve added a musical response on my blog.
@blonde_apocalypse - They stop my requests to connect and throw ‘em in a trash can. But it’s kinda ‘off-the-books’, so you won’t find governmental admission. I posted here about it. My people are applying pressure as we speak. And I believe the (arson?) total loss of the country’s only IKEA might have angered the tall blonds from the North. We shall see.
@doahsdeer - Excellent: I cain’t wait. Shabbat shalom, btw
I wasn’t aware the Swedes had a problem with Israel.
On an unrelated tangent, is it cool to use a computer after sundown on Friday there? Is it after sundown there? Isn’t that like … lighting fire?
@blonde_apocalypse - Good eyes; yeah, 7 PM. I balance the need to make the world a better place(Xanga) against lots of stone-age prohibitions. The Rabbi’s right next door, with all the lights left on, which is kosher. My question, if I felt like talking to the dude, is whether I can look at pages, but just not comment? They got an answer for everything. Mebbe you burn if you use ALL CAPS?
I feel we all should carefully avoid calling Dan an “illiterate hack” or a “knucklehead” or a “mongoloid” or a “tragic waste of protoplasm.” That would be rude.
Ha! I wouldn’t presume to pass judgement on your choices, I was just interested in the customs.
I visited Israel December 2010. It was an amazing time, and probably my fav experience was getting to observe the Shabat celebration at the Wall in Jerusalem. It was an extremely powerful experience,even knowing I was an outsider to the core of it. As with anything, there’s the spirit of the law (you must take a day periodically to rest your body and your mind, and the older I get, the more I realize the vast importance of that because I suffer so much from ignoring that wisdom) vs the letter of the law (taking the light bulb out of your fridge on Friday afternoon).
Someone once posted the remark that the best way to drive traffic to you’re sight is to include a misspelling in a post title. It mite be deliberate. But less people are picky about they’re grammar and spelling these days so who nose?
@we_deny_everything - Absolutely. No question there. I’d even rule out ‘dimwit’ or ‘clueless suburbanite camp-follower’.
Seriously, his thoughtfulness has meant a lot to quite a few Xangans, on the personal level. My only small bitch is the sub-standard vernacular.
I, too, shudder at poor English. Mine isn’t perfect, for sure, so I don’t correct much, but it’s kind of sad to see that some for whom English is a second language are better at it than those of us who grew up in American schools.
@blonde_apocalypse - So nice to hear; I’m happy for you. And even as a jew, my experiences at the Wall have always been of tension from the righteous temple-guards who hang out there.
The rabbi has no problem walking over to ask me to turn his AC circuit-breaker back on, or push his car back into the driveway after he forgets the hand-brake. I gave up with him on theology; we’re just on different levels.
@Roadkill_Spatula - Tim, you rilly think its deliburate? Then Id be so ‘barrassed?
@whyzat - Yours, I’ve noticed is just peachy. (otherwise I’d “delete-sub” ha.
He’s a nice enough guy, but often gives the impression of having just eaten the covers off the books the day they taught some pretty basic stuff. And he thereby gives a kind of ‘permission’ for the wanna-be horde to also ‘poop in bed’, so to speak. Somebody needs to say ‘Enough’. Just not sure it’s me…
@jsolberg - sub-standard, really? I left a comment on his page, “That’s your your opinion.” (your your? This little story may or may not be true.) His wry reply was “Whose ‘your,’ daddy?”
@we_deny_everything - He’s a Hoosier daddy, perhaps.
@we_deny_everything - My experience with equally-literate Jersey cattle taught me to always try ‘subtle’ first. Give ‘em a hint an’ a wink, of course, never to any avail, but at least then I’d feel justified in using a goad, let’s call it.
One sweetheart, passionflower86, I think, did proffer a quick correction, Comment#7 or so. I didn’t see a reply. Anyway, ‘You-go, JB! I’m right behind you, y’know. Back behind that tree.
@Roadkill_Spatula - Bravo. Plus an Oy! If I’d have thought of that one, it’d have been the title here, sho-nuff. We need to do lunch.
@jsolberg - Now that you have your incisors again, we can maybe go to a steak place instead of a buffet with lots of soft foods.
@Roadkill_Spatula - Incisive of you. Yeah, I can crunch anything ‘cept Brazil nuts.
Still can’t get over the excellence of your Hoosier-daddy-ism.
And there’s a lot more wrong with the language in that ill-starred entry. I mean, “they were talking on the radio today”?? Who says (ok, writes) stuff like that? ‘which’ for ‘that’, then ‘showed {*that* 12%…’ It’s a classic ‘Redo from start’. Let’s go to a restaurant where they ain’t talk suchly.
@jsolberg - I replaced a which with a who in one of my own translations yesterday. Rereading before sending/posting/printing is essential. Of course, words are my business. I’ve been known to spend 45 minutes composing a two-paragraph e-mail to fellow team-members. What I’m wondering right now is, why do you even read his posts? I’ve never found them that interesting, and wading through the ensuing comments (which is his whole point) is as intellectually stimulating as the Donahue/Oprah/Springer show.
@Roadkill_Spatula - Let me explain: I am Xanga’s DeToqueville. Margaret Mead. Charles Kurault. B.F. Skinner. Hence, to justify my grant money, I read comments start to finish, on topics like ‘VD Day: How to tell someone you love them(-sic-)’ Jus checkin’ out the natives. Know the enemy. Get to meet him (He is Us?)
Just kidding a bit, but not much. I do intensely want to know how we got here, and how to get back up into the light.
I screen-capture flawed titles every couple days from the Front page. Save them to a File of Shame. Bad grammar, tastelessness, banality, plagarism; they all have their own sub-files. You don’t appear to be in my records, not once.Sorry.
I remember you tried once or twice to help someone’s wording. Wish I thought it possible.
@jsolberg - Actually I had a significant impact on my dear buddy @HereLiesNelsonTheGreat, I think. He started to self-edit after I rewrote something of his a couple of years ago (with his permission). In the process the world lost some absolutely brilliant malaprops, and I regret it now. But it does show that some people are receptive.
I flat-out failed in most other attempts. English majors are the worst because they’re “experts.” One girl’s poem included the phrase “my defected brain,” and it wasn’t requesting asylum. Another argued with me about laid/lay after I pointed out the henlikeness she attributed to herself. Another described something I corrected as “the object of the verb,” but the verb in question was a linking verb, of which I had memorized a list (am-is-are-was-were-taste-feel-sound-look-smell-seem-become) in fifth grade, and linking verbs by definition have no object; subjective case goes fore and aft. So I have generally sworn off such activities and let the errors fall where they may.
I used to collect bad translations and ambiguous headlines, but can’t find that folder now. What I see on Xanga doesn’t seem worth the time to comment on.
Not to correct you or the Theologian’s Cafe, but to correct you and the Theologian’s Cafe; the proper wording is: Who yo daddy? I apologise if my spelling is off, but I’m quite sure this is the term you’re, I mean, yer trying to grasp.
If the revolution of excellence on Xanga is ever to take hold it must start somewhere, even if it is in some backwoods holler occupied by brilliant minds warped by decades of neglect, preaching to a choir of BMOC haters.
@we_deny_everything - I guess that means I should have not called him a cunt.
(what) does anyone think?
Yeah! I mean who the hell says “Daddy” …?
@FrenzElectric - Good question. Almost 20 years out of the States here; the new term could be almost anything an’ I wouldn’t know. Here it’s been ‘Abba’ the last 3000 years, and I never heard any other word.
@bonmots - Nice rhetorical re-do. I’d add a comma after the ‘what’. Thanks for your help.
@dirtbubble - I like everybody some. Just think the BMs should have spent more quality time OC.
The Revolution will not be Proof-read?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/your
@Kellsbella - Right you are, and my answer is that I got 17 of ‘em, one after another back to a century before the 30-years War. But nowadays, some folks have 7 all from the same hood.
So there is a serious issue here; it just should have been laid-out more non-ridiculously.
@jsolberg - better idea
@Roadkill_Spatula - Great points as always. Esp about Eng majors. I had one a month or so ago who, in a post called “Dont correct my grammar”(?) announced that she had a Bachelors Degree. They give ‘em to gangs of bachelors, I guess. My ‘repair’ comment was too sly, and she never got the hint. Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, two other Eng major’s (sic) supported her blindly, citing their own ‘degree’s’ I think you get a box of apostrophes with one, but you have to use ‘em up before the sell-by date.
@jsolberg - I can be so undiplomatic in my quest for cheap chortles. Well, for the record, since this is all for the record, me and TTC kissed and made up and we were going to get married except it didn’t work out. I have quoted others who said, “He’s actually a really nice guy.” Perhaps even imptelligent. Who knows? Maybe he misspelled that word just to get your attention.
@plantinthewindow - Ha. You know you’re in trouble when you need to look that one up, although some days before coffee I check up on ‘the’ just to make sure…
(There are actually five(5) correction comments on this post; I just checked. But none of ‘em quite as playful as mine. And one unstoppable ‘educator’ even used the ‘M’-(oron) word. Goodwin’s next, I guess. All I wanted was to fix up the Front Page a bit, before my Mum visits.
@dirtbubble - if it was deliberate then I’m the fool, who coulda scheduled a quick root-canal instead of blogging this.
Oh well, we’ll always have Plaster-of-Paris. Here’s looking at yer Daddy. Mebbe.
I hear you. I post something and I’m sure it’s all correct and clean, then I read it and wtf? how’s I miss that?
I’m embarrassed to admit how many times I’m writing and I think “is that right?” gah.
This was extremely entertaining. Thanks for leading me away from that other place to a place with better commentary. (and I used capital letters just for you.)
It would be all the fault of the Romans with their qui, que, quod, quis. Sigh – being in IN we hear that a lot – Hoosier daddy? I’m starting to prefer the alternative, Indianaian. Perhaps more grammatically correct but a killer if you are buying vowels.
@murisopsis - Lot’s of blame all around, Val. Latin for the whose, Columbus for the “Duh, ‘Indians?’ Prolly, but I don’t remember the Suez Canal?”
I’d speak French, but don’t have the francs for the tons of vowels it takes. Just a glass of water and ya bought three.
Stay warm, friend:) Here it’s 35F and 60 mph wind. Lovely
@plantinthewindow - See, but you care deeply. Your kind makes occasional ‘Typos’, but at least not gaffes out of ignernz. All the difference in the world. Even the Declaration of Independence probably had typos, first draft. They were so excited about the big picture, you know, creating a brand new Xanga site. Might not have included Texas though.
@promisesunshine - Wow, I’ll have to check it out; I collect CAPS, for the prizes.
And nice to see both a plant in the window and the lovely promised sunshine here. A couple weeks and I’ll have passion flowers and mebbe even one of the butterflies so prevalent in these cyber-parts.
tmc;dr OR Too many comments, didn’t read. Theologians don’t do grammar, it seems.
@elgan - They do it, El, just not well. Descartes on the other hand was a prodigy. At age three, pondering the plates on the dinner table, he said, famously “I think they’re for a Yam..” His Mom pinched his cheek: ‘Ach, du wunnerkind, mein kleine sweet-potato.”
Put him in the who’sgow, I sez.
@twoberry - One of the downsides to being a long-time ex-pat is that I’ve forgotten English, except for the smile, or smell. I just know there’s a word, ending in -gow, meaning some kind of penal thingie, but go figure what it is?
@jsolberg - When you ask ME a question, you get a bonus. Here are ALL of the words ending in -GOW, and your question is answered by the first two of the three listed words from a little computer program I own. The preferred spelling is HOOSEGOW, by the way. Anyway, I didn’t know the meaning of LOBBYGOW, and because it’s an American word, the program had the answer for me. Here ’tis:
WHAT?: *gow
HOOSEGOW HOOSGOW LOBBYGOW
WHAT?: lobbygow”
LOBBYGOW – LOBBYGOW n pl. -S an errand boy
The program won’t tell me the meaning of a word if it isn’t in the American tome known as the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. Fortunately, LOBBYGOW is an American word. HOOSEGOW and HOOSGOW mean “jail,” as you rightly recalled.
1)Eye’ll see year contractual-obligato comment and aisle Ray’s yew’s another buick 100.
2)In Eastern Canada a child asking, ”Which ‘whose’ should I use?”, will usually be answered with,”Any hoos in the village yer like, only see you takes off yer shoos so ya don’t be tracking no snow all over the lino, eh. And take thet be-Jeesus hockey helmet off yer head when oi’m talkin’ at yer like; it ain’t likely thet Gordie-bloody-Howe is gonna try to stick his sainted elbow in yer durty earhole while yer taxt massagin’ in the parler. And how do you propose to brush them few remaining teeth with all that steel mesh hanging on yer face and wearin’ yer father’s lacrosse gloves? It’ll look like a blind warder tryin’ to groom Oscar Wilde.”
I’d comment on how you switched the typos, but eh, it’s neither amusing nor original.
@bloggicus_maximus - Embarrassing to wake up at 3AM after posting about grammar and have your suspicions confirmed: Yes, there *was* an error in my own text. I quickly fixed it and whistled my way back to sleep. Good eye.