Who knew grammar was a fandom?

[nonelvis]

I could have lived without the ableist insults, but the rest of this secret gets a big, fat HELL, YES from me. (Note that this is not my secret, but the original, TB!4 in this post, was too hard to read even at 100%, so I enlarged it.)

ETA: I should have added that the language used is NSFW, and that some people may find it offensive.

Comments

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

I have some students who could use that, but I'd get fired if I gave it to them.

The one that's missing, which is really the worst, is "its," "it's," and -- God help me -- "its'."

[syzygy-lj.livejournal.com]

That makes me irrationally angry. I hate the its/it's confusion. But I especially hate -'s as pluralization. It makes my blood boil.

Luckily, I am in a position to break that bad habit before it starts. I am an ESL teacher, and I tell my students that the apostrophe is for contractions and possession only. It's never for pluralization.

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

Mine, unfortunately, have already had 16 years of US education (except for the occasional Canadian or ESL students, who usually don't have that problem, but can have others), so it's next to impossible to drill it out of them. I tell them not to use the apostrophe shotgun -- you know, the one that randomly fires apostrophes into their papers. I also suggest that if they know they have a problem with apostrophes -- as indicated by the BIG RED CIRCLES I put around them -- they should do a search for every apostrophe in their papers during the editing stage and reflect on each one.

[syzygy-lj.livejournal.com]

Tell them for every erroneous apostrophe you see, you'll deduct a mark. You'll be surprised how quickly they disappear.

It worked in my high school English class, anyway. There were grumblings, but the teacher told the class that he was there to teach them how to use the language, so they could learn to do it right or fail.

[nonelvis]

No, it's in there -- kind of, anyway. "It's means 'it fucking is,' as in 'it's amazing how fucking stupid you are.'"

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

"Its" and "it's" are, but not "its'," which is what makes me crazy.