Grammar sticklers may have OCD

The Web of Language Blog ^ | Sun, 24 Jun 2012 | By Dennis Baron

[garjog]

t used to be we thought that people who went around correcting other people’s grammar were just plain annoying. Now there’s evidence they are actually ill, suffering from a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder/oppositional defiant disorder (OCD/ODD). Researchers are calling it Grammatical Pedantry Syndrome, or GPS.

Maybe you’ve heard of the grammar gene—its technical name is the FOXP2 gene—which may be responsible for a variety of grammatical ills, such as the inability to construct compound/complex sentences or to effectively deploy the passive voice. Now there’s evidence that a variant of that gene, FOXP2.1, may actually cause us to obsessively correct other people’s grammar, or should that be, to correct their grammar obsessively? The discovery of this gene, alongside new evidence from fMRI scans of brains exposed to real-time grammatical errors, has led some scientists to predict that soon we may be able to find a cure for GPS, for many sufferers a debilitating, off-putting, sociopathic syndrome.

[mommyq]

Thanks for a good laugh this early in the morning.

[Madame Dufarge]

Where I came from, the Italian-Americans always pronounced it "sangwidge."

OK, so the pronunciation wasn't restricted to them alone.

Pretty much everyone said "minga" too, whether they were Italian or not. :-)

[Madame Dufarge]

I believe you've got it exactly right.

For crying out loud, there's a correct way to build a set of stairs and a correct way to construct a sentence and spell a word.

Why should the former be generally accepted as a universal truth and the latter be considered a mental disorder?

[OldPossum]

... Then there is the misuse of apostrophes, particularly “it’s” when they really mean “its”...

This is one misspelling that I'm afraid will go on forever. Most Freepers simply cannot get it into their heads that "it's" is the contraction of "it" and "is" and "its" is the possessive pronoun.

They can see the words spelled correctly in the article being commented upon and still cannot get it right. Hopeless.

[bt_dooftlook]

I know young adults, products of the best boarding schools and private colleges, who say “Him and me went to the movies last night.”

Bless their hearts, no one apparently cared to correct them when they were younger.

Seems to go hand-in-glove with texting, spellcheck, and not reading books...

[Erasmus]

[...] such as the inability to construct compound/complex sentences or to effectively deploy the passive voice.

Oh, lookee! He split an infinitive!

≤}B^)

[Erasmus]

An interesting tid-bit I have noticed through the years is that a century ago, all signage would end with a period at the end. For instance, you wouldn’t see a sign that said

Walgreens

but one that said

Walgreens.

Another archaic convention was to hyphenate compound words much more than we do now. “To-day;” “tid-bit.” I lost a spelling bee over it.

[Fiji Hill]

Where do you office?

I office at the same place where I go fellowshipping.

[Erasmus]

Here's a book I heartily recommend to fellow pecksniffish grammarians: Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

[Erasmus]

“Why, you dirty SOB,” he said, seething with acronymony.

[murron]

I would love to learn the name of that disease. My husband drives me crazy doing that. He’ll ask me what a word spells, and I try to pronounce it, and then I realize it’s one of his crazy acronyms.

[Erasmus]

[...] the correct term is “antecedent” or “precursor”.

These terms fail to capture the essential meaning element that the work in question was created after the work on which it is based.

For this reason, I also consider the dictionary definition quoted here to be in error, because it also fails to make this distinction; indeed, its wording implies that the "prequel's" production somehow precedes the work on which it is based.

It is the contrast of these concepts--the production of the derivative work following the original, but its narrative preceding that of the original--that is captured uniquely by the neologism. If we need a word for that, and I think we do, that word is "prequel."

Now, as to Godfather II, I am flummoxed.

≤}B^)

[Erasmus]

Beetle: Bonnet.
Ford Prefect: Boot.

[Erasmus]

Where do you office?

Never verb a noun!

[murron]

I particularly get annoyed when I see the word cemetery misspelled as cemetary. Or separate as seperate. (My teacher used to remind us that it’s two A’s separated by an R.)

I cringed recently when a dear friend of mine sent out an email to her co-workers and several professors at the university at which she works to thank them for the flowers that they sent for her mother’s funeral. She commented on how beautiful the flowers looked on the “alter”. Her job is editing the Law Review for spelling and grammatical errors, and she’s been doing this for more than 20 years.

[null and void]

Nah. A baloney sandwich is a slice of baloney, a slice of some indeterminate yellowish cheese and a dollop of Miracle Whip between two slices of slightly sweet but otherwise flavorless white bread.

That, sir, is no baloney sandwich.

[null and void]

There is a rat in separate.

[mylife]

Add pickled pepper giardiniera to that sangwich and you will smile.

[Lady Lucky]

Now there’s evidence that a variant of that gene, FOXP2.1, may actually cause us to obsessively correct

Owwwwwww!!! STOP!!! You're hurting my sensibilities!!!

[bravo whiskey]

On the other hand, it could be the literate losing patience with the illiterate, the lazy and the ignorant - which is as it should be.

ditto