Pointless, right?
Equally pointless is making sure that punctuation, spelling and grammar rules and conventions are adhered to when you're writing things, especially when you're posting them online. I mean, what matters is what you've got to say, not how you say it.
The thing is, if you go deeper into the Van Halen story you find that for Dave Lee Roth** & co. this M&Ms clause wasn't simply a bout of rock'n'roll prima-donna-ishness. It was about making sure things were done right. As a big touring band, many of the clauses in their contract involved technical issues, and many of those involved safety considerations. The idea was that if they got to their backstage area and found that this most pointless of all clauses had been catered for, then it was a fairly good bet that the really important ones had been covered. If there was a brown M&M in attendance, this was a small alarm bell that something may be amiss, and then they could get the right people on to checking things with a fine-toothed comb. Or just trash the place and leave.
This is how I approach things I come across on the internet (or, indeed, in any written form): If there are brown M&Ms in the text (i.e. sentences and proper nouns aren't started with capital letters, punctuation marks are placed seemingly at random and apostrophes are growing with wild abandon out of the most unusual of places), then it raises a suspicion in me that maybe the meaning and content of the text itself might not be all that worth reading. Put a slightly different way, if the basics (such as looking up the correct spelling of a word if you're not sure, or working out whether a colon or a full-stop would be best) haven't been covered, then how on Earth can I be sure that you haven't skimped on the decidedly more difficult task of making sure that what you're writing is considered and reasonable?
The answer is that I can't.
Of course, a piece of writing that has perfect grammar, imaginative syntax and spelling straight out of whichever academic tome is the authority on such things*** is not necessarily factually correct and imbued with sense and reason, but it does give the impression that a little thought has gone into it at the very least.
So take note, please, those of you out there in cyberspace who do things like post links to pro-creationist and pro-geocentrism websites on the contact form of a [not as] popular [as I'd like it to be] astronomy questions blog, that typing in ALL-CAPS followed by strings of exclamation marks is the online equivalent of barely coherent ranting, and every misplaced apostrophe is the uncontrollably ejaculated spittle that hits my face as a result, and it won't be given the time of day.
If you've got this far and know that you, yourself suffer from some grammatical blips from time to time, you could do worse than have a flick through some of the posts I've written with the hope of providing some help for those who never really 'got' the rules. They're under the SPAG tag for this blog. Maybe you're as fed up with people getting it wrong as I am, in which case you might think it useful to find the specific misdemeanour under the SPAG tag, and quietly point the offender in its direction.
* This is not, apparently, urban rock-legend, but true, if Snopes.com is any kind of authority.
Of course, a piece of writing that has perfect grammar, imaginative syntax and spelling straight out of whichever academic tome is the authority on such things*** is not necessarily factually correct and imbued with sense and reason, but it does give the impression that a little thought has gone into it at the very least.
So take note, please, those of you out there in cyberspace who do things like post links to pro-creationist and pro-geocentrism websites on the contact form of a [not as] popular [as I'd like it to be] astronomy questions blog, that typing in ALL-CAPS followed by strings of exclamation marks is the online equivalent of barely coherent ranting, and every misplaced apostrophe is the uncontrollably ejaculated spittle that hits my face as a result, and it won't be given the time of day.
If you've got this far and know that you, yourself suffer from some grammatical blips from time to time, you could do worse than have a flick through some of the posts I've written with the hope of providing some help for those who never really 'got' the rules. They're under the SPAG tag for this blog. Maybe you're as fed up with people getting it wrong as I am, in which case you might think it useful to find the specific misdemeanour under the SPAG tag, and quietly point the offender in its direction.
* This is not, apparently, urban rock-legend, but true, if Snopes.com is any kind of authority.
** Who, totally irrelevantly, shares my birthday.
*** It occured to me after writing that sentence that the reference book I'm alluding to may well be a dictionary.
*** It occured to me after writing that sentence that the reference book I'm alluding to may well be a dictionary.
Oh Tom, I do love you!
ReplyDeleteAnd you finally admit it.
ReplyDeleteI think the ejaculated spittle comment really sets this piece alight. Excellent work Tom! :-)
ReplyDeleteWhy, thank you. I've been reading Sherlock Holmes, and he does a lot of ejaculating.
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend goes mental at me for my terrible grammar and other technical English stuff. I've got a proven blind spot for apostrophes and singular and plural words. We had a bit of an argument the other day about whether the word 'staff' is singular or plural. The sentence in question:
ReplyDelete"The staff [is/are] transported home on the company bus"
I would use 'are', she is adamant that it should be 'is'. We still argue about it today!
Peter
Well said that man.
ReplyDeleteAt the college where I work, some of the worst offenders for badly written/spelled/punctuated emails are the senior managers. It annoys me all the time.
Are there really still people out there who don't know that typing in capitals in cyber space is the equivalent of shouting? Sigh.
Peter: I'd be interested to know what 'proven blind spot' really means. I have a proven blind spot for learning foreign languages. All that really means, when I think about it truly and deeply, is that I've never really put the effort in. Have you ever actually sat down and tried to learn how to use apostrophes, or has it always been 'I've got a blind spot'? I don't mean to sound belittling (but am mindful that it's possible that I do), but could it be that it's just not something you've thought of as being all that important, hence haven't put the legwork in? I ask because, as a maths teacher, I find that "I have this genuine medical excuse" is often a euphemism for "I don't care/ couldn't be bothered/ would rather learn about something else instead", and that a lot of people don't even realise that they're making excuses.
ReplyDeleteAs for words like 'staff' and using 'is' or 'are'... I get stuck with those t0o. I think it's possibly that you can use either depending on the context. If JoTorr is still paying attention, maybe she might be able to give us a hand with this one?
Liz: I'm routinely annoyed by fellow teachers who (if they are an English teacher) state that they don't need to know about maths or (if they are a maths teacher) that they don't need to know about using English (other subject teachers are just as bad, if not worse, for the record).
ReplyDeleteMy opinion, which I will debate until the remains of humanity have crumbled to dust, is that it's important to be an all-rounder. If I am ever caught stating that I 'don't need to know' something as an excuse for not bothering to learn it, whoever hears it has licence to slap me sharply across the face as that's never a good excuse for perpetuating one's ignorance.
You're probably right, Tom, the 'proven' blind spot is more a case of not sitting down and learning it, I think the only hope is to knuckle down one afternoon learn it parrot fashion.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I don't ever remember learning the technicalities and grammar rules of English at school, is it something they actively teach in secondary school?
Here's another example that makes my girlfriend go crazy when she reads my writing:
"Did you know that Google are the biggest Internet company in the world?"
Infact, she's got so fed up with my appalling apostrophe usage that she's just written a blog post about it!
http://swapnilmidha.com/2011/12/whats’-with-all-these-apostrophe’s-man-this-suck’s/
Grammar Nazi!
I know I have a few 'blind spots' that are entirely due to laziness and/or not thinking that they're important enough to enlighten.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember learning the technicalities of grammar at school either, and I have to think a bit before I can classify a given word (as a verb, etc). Most of my ability to use the English language has come since I left school as a result of doing a fair bit of writing and being conscious of the fact that people read what they want to rather than what's there: I want my public opinion to be undeniable in print if I'm called up on it. The last thing I want is to be misrepresented, and if my writing is technically correct then it's easier to defend against people who (deliberately or otherwise) attempt to twist my words.
I've just read that post (and commented on it). It's pretty good; I can't believe that I haven't written about apostrophes before (click the SPAG tag over on the right to have a look at the things I HAVE written about) as the basic rules are so ludicrously simple:
1. Ownership? Apostrophe.
b. Missing letters? Apostrophe.
iii) Plural? No apostrophe.
There are exceptions and extensions to these three rules, which your girlfriend dips into, but on a day-to-day basis an understanding of these three apostrophe basics should get you through.