Posted on 09/06/2014 9:50:07 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW
WEIRD AL YANKOVIC LYRICS
"Word Crimes"
[Intro:]
Everybody shut up, WOO!
Everyone listen up!
Hey, hey, hey, uh
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
[Verse 1:]
If you can't write in the proper way
If you don't know how to conjugate
Maybe you flunked that class
And maybe now you find
That people mock you online
[Bridge:]
Okay, now here's the deal
I'll try to educate ya
Gonna familiarize
You with the nomenclature
You'll learn the definitions
Of nouns and prepositions
Literacy's your mission
And that's why I think it's a
[Chorus:]
Good time
To learn some grammar
Now, did I stammer
Work on that grammar
You should know when
It's "less" or it's "fewer"
Like people who were
Never raised in a sewer
I hate these word crimes
Like I could care less
That means you do care
At least a little
Don't be a moron
You'd better slow down
And use the right pronoun
Show the world you're no clown
Everybody wise up!
[Verse 2:]
Say you got an "I","T"
Followed by apostrophe, "s"
Now what does that mean?
You would not use "it's" in this case
As a possessive
It's a contraction
What's a contraction?
Well, it's the shortening of a word, or a group of words
By the omission of a sound or letter
[Bridge:]
Okay, now here's some notes
Syntax you're always mangling
No "x" in "espresso"
Your participle's danglin'
But I don't want your drama
If you really wanna
Leave out that Oxford comma
Just keep in mind
[Chorus:]
That "be", "see", "are", "you"
Are words, not letters
Get it together
Use your spellchecker
You should never
Write words using numbers
Unless you're seven
Or your name is Prince
I hate these word crimes
You really need a
Full time proofreader
You dumb mouth-breather
Well, you should hire
Some cunning linguist
To help you distinguish
What is proper English
[Verse 3:]
One thing I ask of you
Time to learn your homophones is past due
Learn to diagram a sentence too
Always say "to whom"
Don't ever say "to who"
And listen up when I tell you this
I hope you never use quotation marks for emphasis
You finished second grade
I hope you can tell
If you're doing good or doing well
About better figure out the difference
Irony is not coincidence
And I thought that you'd gotten it through your skull
What's figurative and what's literal
Oh but, just now, you said
You literally couldn't get out of bed
That really makes me want to literally
Smack a crowbar upside your stupid head
[Chorus:]
I read your e-mail
It's quite apparent
Your grammar's errant
You're incoherent
Saw your blog post
It's really fantastic
That was sarcastic (Oh, psych!)
'Cause you write like a spastic
I hate these Word Crimes
Your prose is dopey
Think you should only
Write in emoji
Oh, you're a lost cause
Go back to pre-school
Get out of the gene pool
Try your best to not drool
[Outro:]
Never mind I give up
Really now I give up
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Go Away!
This could become the “Horst Wessel Song” of the Grammar Nazis.
Although, I must admit, I love Weird Al, and this particular video is brilliant. :-)
It’s a really good song. To get the full effect watch the Video.
Excellent
I love Weird Al! :)
Me too. :-)
I think a lot of the press needs to hear Al’s song. LOL
At least before they can get a Journalism or Communications degree.
As with “White and Nerdy”, Weird Al’s version is far, far superior to the original.
Absolutely. A lot of then would fail a grade school writing assignment.
Yes indeed!
The television news people need to hear it as well.
I recently finished reading War and Peace, and I noticed some horrible grammatical errors in the translation (”he had wokened up to find”... etc). I was appalled that the towering prose of Tolstoy had been entrusted to a translator who seemed unable to speak English! :-)
I am definitely not a “Grammar Nazi” though. I usually notice these things, but hardly ever comment because I try to be “nice”. LOL.
I used to listen to him on the Dr. Demento show back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They used to laugh at him in the early days but he's had a longer career than almost all the artists he has parodied.
I admit to making grammatical mistakes but some are more glaring than others and those usually aren’t mine. lol
Ah...but YOU are not being paid to translate Tolstoy! LOL!
So, YOU are forgiven! :-)
LOL!!!
I actually used to belong to his fanclub, Close Personal Friends of Al, when I was a kid, and wrote him a fan letter with a list of 10 questions. I was BLOWN AWAY when he wrote back and gave detailed answers for each one on the back of a 8x10 B&W headshot. Sadly the trapperkeeper I had the print tucked in was stolen at school.
That must have been lovely. What a shame that someone stole it!
he he He...I make good joke, yes?
In Russia, the joke makes YOU!
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