I couldn’t resist

I was going to skip posting today, but I saw today’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and had to share it with all you grammar-lovers out there in case you missed it. (The link is for the SMBC main site. You have to navigate to the one for Dec 31, 2011 if you click the link some other day.) The strip is too long to show here, so here are the first two panels.

If it's not Dec 31, and you click the picture, I think it'll take you to the right day.

Of course this is one of my favorite mistakes to hate. Note that the bad guy did learn the grammar lesson—he just hates it.

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I seem to be on a comics jag lately. As it happens, comic writers generally have a pretty good grasp of English, and they have well-developed senses of humor, so I suppose comics are naturally a fertile field for humorous references to our language.  Here are two more.

Bob Thaves, he of Frank and Ernest, is the consummate master of the egregiously wonderful pun. (Yes, “egregiously wonderful” is an oxymoron, at least when applied to puns. The better the pun, the bigger the groan.) You really should bookmark or get an RSS feed to this strip.

"ad hominem" is the punned-upon term, but you probably knew that

This one is from an absurdist strip I found recently, named Hubert and Abby. It happens to mention a word that if you get it wrong, you betray serious illiteracy. (And if you got that sentence on the first try, you are definitely not illiterate.)

Beware of words the spell checker doesn't catch!

Here’s a comic I ran into recently.  The parrot got three things right that a lot of folks get wrong. Bizarro is generally pretty funny, by the way, and I recommend it.

The first thing is he mentioned himself first. Yes, this is opposite of an aside I made in a recent post about case. Normally, out of humility, you’re supposed to mention yourself last, but it’s not necessary to put yourself behind inanimate objects, and he’s talking mainly about himself anyway.

Second, he used the correct case. Many people would have said “With crackers and I…” and this is wrong. Object of a preposition—use “me.”

Third, a lot of folks would have missed the apostrophe in “a thousand’s.” It’s a contraction of “thousand is.”

Fourth, he didn’t point out that his mistress had eaten a few too many crackers herself.

“Xmas” is an economical way to write “Christmas,” but it’s generally considered poor taste in religious contexts, and is seen more often in secular contexts.

No manger scene here. In fact, it looks like the jolly old elf is holding a cocktail!

Where did the X come from? It’s not actually an X, but the Greek letter chi, the first letter of the word XPIΣTOS, Christ. The chi as an abbreviation for “Christ” goes clear back to ancient Greek copies of the New Testament. So the abbreviation has a long and venerable history.

We do use an x in other contexts, though. “wx” stands for “weather” in meteorological writing, and “xmitter” is an abbreviation for “transmitter” in radio broadcasting circles.

When you write to explain something, your writing should focus your reader’s attention on the content, not on the writing, and not on you. Business English has become contaminated with pretentiousisms (a new word, invented by me, and seen here for the first time!), words that are fancier than necessary, and sometimes incorrect. People insert them to sound more erudite.  Here are a few of my favorite pretentiousisms. Don’t use them.

Using French is either pretentious or funny.

Prior when you mean previous. “Prior” implies greater importance, such as being a prerequisite for what follows. “Previous” refers to something that came first. For example I should say “The previous comic strip was funny, but I cannot quote it without prior written permission.”

Which when you mean that. This is something that Microsoft’s grammar checker generally gets right, by the way. Use “which” when you make an aside, and prefix it with a comma. Use “that” when you’re adding necessary information about something. For example you should say “The lecture that the professor gave yesterday was about the concept of free will, which I know nothing about.” Here’s the rule of thumb: ask if “that” works in the sentence. if it does, don’t use “which.”

Those when you mean the. Bad: “Those people who drive fancy cars are being pretentious.” Better: “The people who drive fancy…” Best: “People who drive fancy…” You might say that you want to more strongly point out whom you are referring to. No need; you make the point just fine with “the” or nothing. (You should be careful of generalizations anyway.)

Get your plurals right. Don’t use artificial Latin endings. Perhaps the most common if these is the plural of process, in spoken English. Don’t say “processees” (processese?) The plural of “process” is plain old “processes,” accent on the first syllable. People Latinize plurals on other words that end in -is and -es, such as “premise.” Be careful, though. Some words do have a Latin plural, “analysis” for example.

Another plural that a lot of folks mess up is the plural of “incident.” It’s “incidents,” not “incidences.”

Be careful of instant and instance.  “Instant” a measure of time, “instance” is an example of something.  The plurals are “instants” and instances.” Don’t make the plural of “instant” into “instantses” just to add a syllable.

The word “different” is often unnecessary. Usually you can leave it out. “There are two different ways to get there from here” means the same thing as “There are two ways to get there from here.” Leave out “different.” This one is a pet peeve of a fellow curmudgeon, Jim Murray, whom I worked with at Gateway 2000 many years ago. Hi, Jim!

Using myself when you mean me. Use “myself” only when you have already referred to yourself in the sentence. (Note that this applies to “you” and “yourself,” too.) Here is an example of the wrong usage by someone who ought to know better, Michael Shirmer, the founding editor of Skeptic magazine, in his book, The Believing Brain:

Good point. But the problem for both Dawkins and myself is our chauvinism. As Carl Sagan used to say, we are carbon chauvinists.

Why didn’t he write “…the problem for both Dawkins and me…”? I haven’t asked him, but I’ll suspect that Dr. Shirmer felt that “me” was too casual. In other words, not high-falootin’ enough. The context (page 198, by the way) is a discussion of the likelihood of encounters with extraterrestrials, so here’s a picture. Both Dawkins and Shirmer say we don’t have any extraterrestrials on earth, and I’m inclined to agree with them.

Picture used without permission. If you own it, I'll take it down and use something else.

Expect another post on pretentiousness. This list is merely items that came to mind this evening.