Actually, I can be a bit of a grammar pedant myself. Grocers’ apostrophes do tend to make me wince. Likewise, incorrect use of their, there and they’re. However, I let it pass. After all, I’m not perfect. Not, however, Albert. being a teenager he knows everything and hasn’t yet learned the art of humility. No, our Albert feels that it is his place to put the world to rights and doesn’t he just?
I am a pedant. There is no question about it. Everyone I know would agree, and I accept and embrace it. I have no problem with being called a nerd, or a geek, or any synonyms of these words. I watch the BBC programme QI, and I have read the quiz show’s Book of General Ignorance, which has prompted frequent corrections of my friends’ and family’s mistakes.
I bet he’s a popular soul at family gatherings.
In addition to this, I get frustrated about incorrect grammar. Earlier this year, I wrote to Tesco because its orange juice informed me that the oranges were squeezed at their “most tastiest”. To my surprise, Tesco actually responded with a promise to change the packaging.
While he is correct – “most” used here is redundant, most of us really wouldn’t bother because, well, who gives a fuck? Albert does, obviously but he’s clearly a self-righteous, pompous little arsehole with nothing else to worry his empty head. Tesco’s reply should have exhorted him to learn all about reproduction in foreign places.
I decided to do so (to many papers, including the Sun), not simply to see if they would publish it but also because I was genuinely shocked by Tesco’s command of English.
When he grows older, he will realise that there is rather more in the world to be shocked about than a redundant word on some packaging.
Generally, I try to hold back the temptation to correct people.
No, you don’t, you just said as much in your previous paragraph.
My friends and family get quickly irritated if I point out their mistakes,
Who can blame them? Most people become annoyed by pompous little prigs getting on their high horse about something that really isn’t important.
and I have tried to accept that people make errors in speech, as they often just blurt things out with little thought (especially as my friends are all 15- or 16-year-olds).
How terribly magnanimous of you. I’m sure they are suitably grateful.
However, I really feel it doesn’t send out a very good message when multinational companies such as Tesco, and more recently BMW (with its “bites as bad as it barks” slogan), make such glaring mistakes.
Again, so what? Advertising copy often mangles the language to create a gimmicky slogan. Sometimes it is clever, sometime it misses the mark. Who cares? Most of us don’t. Well, apart from our pompous little friend who clearly has a future over at the Groan as they have form when it comes to patronising little pricks.
Personally, I am willing to accept some errors – I wouldn’t hassle someone over their use of “who” rather than “whom” – but I can’t believe some of the errors companies make.
Oh, wow! You are prepared to accept some errors. We are not worthy. On a more serious note, however, it’s just as well, because modern usage allows for it. You see, grammar isn’t the be all and end all of language. Usage comes into play and rules relax and sometimes become redundant. So we can all breathe easy knowing that that Albert won’t be hassling us if we use “who” when we should be using “whom”, I bet you are all dead pleased about that, eh?
I decided that the best way to get my point across about large companies setting a good example was to write an exaggerated and slightly sarcastic letter. I hoped to amuse my friends, and the editors of the newspapers, but there was a point to be made.
Oh, do fuck off!
I do understand that many people believe it to be a good thing that language develops.
It does. Get over it.
I agree with this in part, but feel that the basic rules of the English language should be adhered to.
If you are a grammar pedant, you would abhor sentences that end in prepositions, wouldn’t you? Of course, if you accept that language evolves and that there is such a thing as modern usage, you recognise that in some cases, the sentence makes more sense written that way. So, make your mind up.
You would think that as someone who has on occasion complained here about the standards of literacy we see being exhibited, I would be a natural ally of Albert Gifford, but his overweening arrogance raises my hackles. And, frankly, no one likes a smartarse…
Methinks our Albert does spend too much time scrutinising the words and speech of others to the detriment of his love life. I suspect Albert is destined to a lonely pedant’s life. His epistles will flow and his ire will wax, but fortunately, for us, he will not produce issue. Pedantry is a lonely profession and ultimately an evolutionary, dead end. 😉
This post falls nicely into line with the comment by a teacher this morning that it’s no longer necessary to learn handwriting (note correct use of apostrophe).
So… someone who makes a great song and dance about freedom of expression, etc., doesn’t like the words written by a teenaged kid who isn’t sprinkling “like” and “amazeballs” into every sentence?
“Not, however, Albert. being a teenager he knows everything and hasn’t yet learned the art of humility.”
As you say: he’s a *teenager*. Full of piss and vinegar (and, yes, shit)… so, just like every other teenager then.
Nobody forced you to read what the kid has to say. To go on a major rant about his naïve views on the English language as if he were some bloody jihadist is a bit hypocritical. Yes, there are arguably “more important” things going on in the world, but I contend that I’d rather a teenage kid had a bit of a language fetish than a gun fetish.
I find it refreshing to read about someone who actually gives a damn about quality of communication in this day and age. And communication quality *matters*. How often have we read about people having to apologise over some utterance someone else took offence at? There are morons out there who will happily scream bloody murder at the drop of a hat.
Hell, people are routinely *killed* over words: Contrary to popular belief, nobody really worships gods. Most people worship *books*. Holy books that tell tall tales. All filled with words. Even relatively minor differences in interpretation of those ‘sacred’ words have caused bloody schisms, murder and suffering for millennia.
As a species, we really are surprisingly bad at communication, so when someone chooses to stand up and protect it—however naïvely—I applaud.
Today, *anyone* can write or speak words that can be heard by anyone around the world. While we in the West like to pay at least lip-service to the notion of Freedom of Expression, there’s no such thing as a right to “Freedom from Consequences”. And we’ve been seeing an awful lot of those consequences of late.
This is not going to end well.
Just a thought Sean. Being obsessed with grammar and guns is not mutually exclusive. People obsessed with ‘one thing’ tend to be obsessed people in general. I agree he probably has a lot of growing up to do. Regardless, he does sound like an irritating little shit.
Freedom of expression does not confer immunity from criticism. There is no hypocrisy on my part here whatsoever. Not liking what I have read and commenting accordingly is all part of freedom of expression.
I’ll agree you certainly have a right to criticise others. I explicitly pointed out that there’s no “right” to “Freedom from Consequences”, and this kid is certainly seeing a clear illustration of that, in spades.
My point was you open with a note that you, yourself, are a bit of a grammar pedant too. This is merely a matter of degree, so why the massive, bile-filled, vitriolic, spittle-flecked rant against a 15-year-old teen who will learn better as he grows up?
Would I have written to Tesco’s marketing department about the wording on their orange juice cartons? No. I know how marketing departments work. But I’m quite a bit older than Albert Gifford.
Life is a constant learning process. I have no problem helping someone learn. My surprise comes from your decision to slap down a 15-year-old kid with an absolute sledgehammer of a response. He’s not being parachuted into a Tory seat. He’s not telling everyone how much sugar or salt they should eat. He’s not demanding free money from the taxpayers to swell some charity’s coffers. He’s certainly not telling us we should all be enlisting in the army and heading over to the Ukraine / Sudan / Iraq / Syria / [insert fashionable war zone here]. There really are far more deserving targets than this. Your post genuinely struck me as being a bit out of character.
He’s a kid. Just a kid. He’s powerless. And his contemporaries are probably Twitting and Facing and whatever else it is they do this week, using abominations like “c u 2mrw”. There really are kids today who think such “writing”—and I use that word in its loosest possible sense—is acceptable in *exams* now.
Personally, I find it refreshing to see *any* kid that age who knows how to string a coherent sentence together, let alone entire letters. There’s hope for humanity yet.
I don’t take it upon myself to lecture people about their split infinitives, double superlatives, dangling participles or poor spelling because I have manners. People with bad manners – such as Albert Gifford – definitely do deserved to be called upon it. A shit is a shit whether he is 15, 50 or 150.
He took it upon himself to correct people who did not need correction. When Tesco quite rightly ignored his pompous correction, he then took it upon himself to write to every newspaper in an attempt at humiliating them into a response. This is shitty behaviour to say the least. he then compounds it with a self-congratulatory article in the Groan. I’m not the one using a sledgehammer here. Kid or not, he needs to learn some basic manners and now is as good a time as any. What is good enough for him to dish out is certainly good enough for me to serve up in response.
I would like to see a higher standard of literacy among young people. Albert Gifford’s behaviour has set that back because, frankly, I am far from the only one who now looks at him and sees nothing more than a snotty kid with an ego complex and the message is lost among that – tainted even.
“When Tesco quite rightly ignored his pompous correction, he then took it upon himself to write to every newspaper in an attempt at humiliating them into a response.”
And the newspapers had the choice *not* to publish such a letter. That they did so speaks volumes about their editorial standards. As for the Graun, I wouldn’t wipe my arse on it.
The thing that really annoys me is not so much when others make the common mistakes (although places like the Daily Mail are often unreadable) but when I make the stupid mistakes myself.
Even though I perfectly well know the difference between the its and it’s, their and there, the here and hear and singular and plural use of the verb to be etc I find when typing quickly that my brain/fingers system short circuits somewhere and I find I have sometimes written a faulty it is because apostrope + s usually means the concept of ownership so my fingers have done it automatically.
I do find it significant that so many people use amount when they should use number and confuse less and fewer. I put it down to a general lack of mathematical skill that scares them off the more numeric (correct) word.
It’s sometimes fun being a pedant – the trick is to use it to deflate people who deserve it not just piss off everyone in the vicinity 🙂
Is it realy true that the young have stopped being able to write but must use a keyboard for everything.
It is easy to see the next thing . No need to be able to read as the machine will do it for you. Eventually the lack of need for people at all.
Already their speech is becoming rather garbled.
I sort of agree with the OP and with some of the points made by Sean as well. As Sean says, it is a good thing that some youngsters at least, do care about correct use of language. This one hasn’t yet learned not to be totally insufferable about it and will have to either learn or end up as Billy No Mates. I meet people who confuse learn and teach, (Can you learn me how to do this?) and use the word lend when what they mean is borrow, whether I correct them or not depends on my mood and the situation. I get annoyed by advertising slogans that finish with an adjective that has no subject to be an adjective about, I can’t say that it has ever occurred to be to write to Sky to tell them that the phrase “Believe in better” doesn’t actually make any sense though.
It’s the totally insufferable that irritates me. If he can completely alienate someone who would otherwise be a natural ally, how do you think the targets of his corrections feel?
As far as the double superlative that caused him to suffer shock, as others have pointed out, it’s fine in English usage – it was good enough for Shakespeare and I’ll take him over Albert Gifford any day.
One thing always irritates me. It is the misuse of the words criterion and criteria. So often you read ‘a criteria for my…..’ or something similar or the word criteria used and there is only a single point made. It is very unusual to see the word criterion used correctly and all too common to see the word criteria used incorrectly. Rant over!
“Well, apart from our pompous little friend who clearly has a future over at the Groan as they have form when it comes to patronising little pricks.”
It doesn’t have form for good grammar or spelling though.