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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
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Howdy, friendly reading person!I’m here to help, folks. Really. I find problems, and I make sure they get solved. That’s just the swell sort of guy I am.
“Maybe they’ve stopped teaching grammar in school. Or maybe folks just need a bit of a refresher. And maybe people are just drooling morons.”
So, when I looked and saw the horrible butchering of the English language going on all around me, I simply had to act. Maybe they’ve stopped teaching grammar in school. Or maybe folks just need a bit of a refresher. And maybe people are just drooling morons. I don’t know, and I don’t want to go there right now. What I do want to do, however, is help.
(Again, with the ‘swell guy’ thing. I’m a regular friggin’ samaritan, ain’t I?
Er, ahem. I mean, ‘aren’t I?‘ Of course. Moving on, then. And don’t talk to me about sentence fragments, all right? I’m trying to tell you something over here.)
So, back to the helping. In my experience, I’ve found that it’s often easier to remember a rule or lesson if there’s a mnemonic available to help you. Now, the annals of grammar contain a few of these mnemonical hints, perhaps the most famous being:
‘I’ before ‘e’
Except after ‘c’,
Or when sounding like ‘a’,
As in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh’.
Effective, right? Easy to remember, catchy, and informative. Once you’ve heard it a couple of times, the lesson sticks. It’s beautiful.
But it’s not enough. Just one mnemonic isn’t going to get us anywhere, people. So I’ve come up with a few more, to help out the masses with all of their speaking and writing needs. Let’s try one out, shall we?
There’s no place for ‘of’
In ‘I could of been rich’;
The correct word is ‘have‘,
You half-witted bitch.
See? Helpful, catchy, and memorable, too. Soon, you’ll be seeing this stuff being taught in third grade English classes — just you watch. How about another one?
Save your filthy apostrophes
for words that are contractions;
As in, ‘What’s up with your winkie?
It’s lost all of its action.’
Okay, so maybe that one didn’t make much sense. Screw it — at least it rhymed, right? You think Funk and Wagnall got this shit right the first time? Let’s go again:
Don’t use ‘their’ with an ‘i’
When you mean ‘they’re‘ or ‘there‘;
If you do it again,
I’ll dip your nethers in Nair.
Hoo boy, is this fun. I’m on a roll! Next!
We all know that ‘ain’t’
Isn’t truly a word;
So stop saying that shit,
You insufferable turd.
Oh, stop. Just stop. I’m gonna pee. I mean, I knew this would be helpful, but I could do this for hours, just to entertain myself. My god, this is fun. Hey, wait, I just said ‘gonna’ — lemme do one about that:
Only a lazy-ass bitch
Would say ‘gonna’ or ‘lemme’;
Have you got a damned defect
In your dumbassed brain stemmy?
Ay, chihuahua, that’s the stuff. All right, I’m done for now, but this has been a hoot. A real-life, certifiable hoot. You guys gotta try this for yourself. And if you come up with a good one, leave me a comment, would ya? This is gonna entertain me for weeks. Who said English couldn’t be fun?
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Pure fucking GOLD, Charlie.
LOL! At heart I’m a copyeditor (sad, I know) and it drives me insane when people don’t know how to use apostrophes. Possessive, not plural, people!
I think you should teach 7th grade English. It might drive you insane, but I’ll bet your students would all learn grammar and not forget it! Until their parents had you fired, of course!
I say gonna and lemme all the time.
But I also have an odd twitch so go figure..
Oh baby. That was brilliant, Master Charles.
Do something for ‘your’ and ‘you’re’…and…and…people that say ‘I could care less’ when they mean ‘I COULDN’T care less’!
If you’re taking requests from the peanut gallery, that is.
(See…’if YOU’RE taking requests’. Fucking morons).
Just because you live in the south
isn’t excuse for your words to go slack
saying stuff like fixin’ to, ain’t and ya’ll
merely points out the brain cells you lack.
But, I reserve the right to use all of these
Like it or not, you don’t have to listen.
Cause I’m fixin to show ya’ll I ain’t lacking in any finese and can bring ya right down to your knees.
One o or two?
It’s hard to tell I must confess
Pick one when you are going somewhere
and two when you’re in excess
I hope you realize
I am talking about to
and too as well
this grammer lesson’s for you
Hmm… just because I’m curious, can someone explain why it’s “I am” but “I am, aren’t I” instead of “I am, am I not?” I’ve always wondered. And I’m serious.
Why are people loosing,
when they mean they are losing?
Unless it is their virginity,
and they have been boozing.
Love your blog. Very very cool.
Politically correct way to say thank you in the south – appreciate it. :)
a thing of beauty…
This is definitely a masterpiece! I’m a grammar nazi myself, and regularly drive my friends crazy correcting their grammar. I actually went off a little on the grammar thing in my latest post. What a coinkydink! :^)
I would find this funnier if not for the fact that there are plenty of people who learned something from your poems. Your of-have poem should be taught in schools (and at my last fucking job).
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!
I do teach English. I do teach grammar. You have just provided me with a tool to make it fun! Year 9’s, watch out!
I’ll share any that are worthwhile…
Can I be a complete cow and point out that some of the things about which you rant, with great validity, are not issues of grammar, but of spelling?
You lose a thousand points for the ridiculous assertion that “ain’t” isn’t a word.
A string of sounds with meaning = a word.
If you’re ever inspired to write a third installment in your grammar series, I have a suggestion. The now-infamous “‘d” used not as a contraction of a pronoun and “had” but rather as a lazy way to transform a noun into a verb in the past tense. It drives me crazy!
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