Grammar Gangsta Says: Celebrate National Grammar Day
Yo, O.G.G. here with my boy Furious D, looking for some brothers and sisters who love words. At a place like Capstrat filled wall to wall with professional communicators, every day is grammar day, right? Today, the whole country gets into the act.
If you have a sec, visit http://nationalgrammarday.com/ for a little fun, a bunch of links, a drink recipe and even a clickable playlist of songs whose authors ought to be rapped across the knuckles by nuns.
Are you hardcore enough to join us? Wanna be a player at Capstrat? We’re coming to the ‘hood to educate you on life in the gang. You up for it? Watch for details on when and where. Till then, holla back with your pet peeves – you know, the grammar and spelling errors that make that vein in your temple throb. No peeve too petty.
Peace out.
Comments
Does joining the Grammar Ganstas involve hazing? Some kind of rapid fire quiz on AP Style while juggling flaming knives? I hope not. I'd fail even without the knives. Still, I do have a bunch of peeves, one of them being overuse of quotation marks. This is especially common on company taglines. ABC Office Supply: "Your single source for office products." Ugh.
As the Gangsa's sidekick and personal security consultant, I'd advise caution pulling out any knives. Extremism in the defense of Mindy is no vice -- and you can think of me as kind of her gun moll, except that the sight of me in a dress would be horrifying.
On a serious note, my hope is that people won't take this topic too seriously. How's that again? What I mean is: Don't think of grammar, style and punctuation as burdens to carry. Think of them as the ground rules of a game we all love to play. Let words trip off your tongue and flow out the ends of your fingers. Have fun. Have a voice. But know that you can't do any of that if the "voice" you present is defined by error, because that drowns out everything else.
And da gang is here to help.
Out,
Furious (J)D
Word, my man. Don't get paralyzed worrying that you'll put a comma in the wrong place. There's a time for getting the brain flowing and thoughts on paper/screen – and a time for refining. The gang will show you the tricks of the trade to make it a little easier.
Here's a first tip – and a pet peeve: Make sure apostrophes in contractions go where letters were left out. For example: when you remember that You all drops the -ou, it's easier to see that the contraction is Y'all, not Ya'll.
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