Grammar noir

Language Log celebrates National Grammar Day. (Image via LafterHall.)

When he was 8 years old

I'm terribly sorry to be That Picky Grammarian, but here is a sentence from today's Gothamist:

Zolezzi's father committed suicide when he was 8-years-old by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is a textbook case - no, it is almost precisely the sentence my ninth-grade English teacher used to show us the meaning of a subject of a sentence.

Bringing complete sentences back to the White House

Obama's sentence is declared "grammatically sound." I think it's worth pointing out grammar when it's admirable, and not just incorrect. It's just so hard to resist the latter. (On a side note, I heard someone yesterday say her husband was going to "talk his arm off." Isn't that lovely?)

Sometimes "your" is possessive,

but other times it means "you are."


(Thanks, Laura.)

One more Post-It

Via Language Log. I took on their challenge of finding an example of "will have been being" in a reasonable context, but all I found was a rather dirty nonsense poem.

Always seemed fishy to me.

"Ghoti" is a Klingon joke.