Sometimes Insisting on Good Grammar isn’t a Good Idea

—I’m ignoring the politeness issue in this post. We have an emergency.

I have a rule (it’s a poster on my wall) that bad writing shouldn’t be justified with the excuse that the reader will figure it out. I suppose the rule applies to speaking, too. Emergencies justify a lot of changes to normal behavior.

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I counted 13 with one quick pass. Don’t forget the redundancy in the fifth panel…

An easy one for me today. Many, obviously, are examples of themselves. And puns. I’ll let you decipher them.

I got it from “The Digital Reader” on Facebook, dated May 26. Many of the comments are more examples of this type of humor.

Here’s the comic. Read carefully.

Here’s the quiz: How many mistakes did they make? I got nine.

(Another shameless plug for someone else)

Mike Peterson is a journalist who writes a blog named Comic Strip of the Day. Usually he uses comics as starters for political and social commentary. (Mike, if you see this, I hope you think that’s a fair description.) I frequently use comics too, but to make points about grammar and writing, mostly expository writing.

This time he started with a Non Sequitur comic that fits well here (see below) and he writes about grammar! Go read the whole post; it’s good, though I don’t know the rule he refers to regarding “may” and “might.”

Here’s the comic: