An Insult that’s a Compliment

Last panel. Nobody cares where the comma should go, right?

But that betrays the secret of good writing: if you do it right, nobody notices. The reader absorbs the content effortlessly. If you need to ask where a comma (or other punctuation, syntax, or grammar) goes, ask me!

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I’ll let you decide on this one. Here’s what stimulated my question:

Using the plural verb “know” just doesn’t feel right, but a family typically has more that one person in it…

“We” is the nominative form, “Us” is the objective. We’re supposed to use “we” as a subject, and “us” as an object. This guy gets it wrong, even though the wrong way is pretty common. First speech in the second panel. The sentence contains an ellipsis (left some words out), which confuses the structure.

The full construction, without the ellipsis, would be “That woman needed it more than we needed it.” Use “us,” and you’re saying “she needed it more than she needed us.” Heh, of course that might be true, too.

The guy in the blue stocking cap must be a writer. Or maybe a proofreader or an editor. I can’t even look at a menu without noticing the misprints.

Well, maybe he’s an anthropologist. They get this spelling, used by rednecks and others who pronounce it that way.

An oxymoron is a self-contradictory phrase or word. Here’s a nice one:

Can you think of a few oxymorons? Mention one of your favorites in the comments.