It’s National Grammar Day! In honor of this auspicious occasion, Glossophilia checks out some of the ways grammar is being celebrated online and around the world.
CNN talked with one of its copyeditors, Katherine Dillinger, about what it’s like to have a job in which every day is grammar day … Asked what she thinks are the most common errors? “It’s probably punctuation errors, specifically comma errors with independent and dependent clauses. … And capitalization … people love to capitalize things they shouldn’t.”
mental_floss gives us 7 Sentences That Sound Crazy But Are Still Grammatical, including the wonderfully bizarre “Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.”
The Atlantic explores the issue of teaching grammar: “A century of research shows that traditional grammar lessons—those hours spent diagramming sentences and memorizing parts of speech—don’t help and may even hinder students’ efforts to become better writers. Yes, they need to learn grammar, but the old-fashioned way does not work.”
Business Insider India examines the 9 Most Controversial Rules in English Grammar. Whether or not you can split an infinitive or use like as a conjunction, and why and when you should use whom are just some of those pesky things we all need to know …
fishbat, announcing some language news about one of the big search engines, makes a spelling error in its press release headline: “fishbat Reveals Why Bing Is Cleaning Up It’s Grammar Act”. Oy: fishbat need’s to get it’s act together … Still, what Bing is doing is interesting: “Bing claims that poor spelling and grammar mistakes affect what users see when searching on the platform. Instead, Bing says that content with errors should be penalized. Now, Bing will reward content with zero errors and rank them at the top of search queries.”
Business2Community offers us a list of Top 10 Grammar Tips for Content Creators, advising such practices as avoiding comma splices and knowing the difference between affect and effect. (OK, that’s a spelling issue, but spelling errors can be so much more fun than grammar fails …)
Finally, celebrate National Grammar Day with a host of activities — from quizzes and tips to wallpaper, t-shirts and a special theme song — at its virtual home on QuickandDirtyTips.com. March forth!!
National Grammar Day was established in 2008 by Martha Brockenbrough, founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) and author of Things That Make Us [Sic].