Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for October 28, 2009

The grammar was getting too “MySpaced” out.

I guess grandpa could handle “google” and “twitter” but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back??

it was too hackneyed, trite and overused. What are his plans for “do”, the substitute verb.

I DON’T GET IT ? DUH

That’s would be extreme, because advertisers are doing a good job of killing the internet all on their own.

if verbing proper nouns gets him riled then I fear for poor Shakespeare’s safety. Why it out-Johsts Johst !

I wonder what Danae would have done? Or better yet, WWDD-What Would Danae Do?

I’m with Grandpa. “grow the company” drives me crazy along with others of that ilk. This cartoon is a perfect example of why english teachers tear out their hair.

A great attention getter in the classroom though. Pull this off and no one will look up from a book again.

Next, let’s shoot all the idiots who use adjectives when they should use adverbs. Only a moron would say “Drive safe” or “Eat healthy” or “Shop local”.

(The phrase “Drive safe” always makes me think of the line from “Airplane II”, “Get them down, and down safe!” At which point a safe falls from the ceiling…)

Grammar geeks unite! It appears that nearly everything is being turned into a verb these days.

One of the worst ad slogans I have heard:

“Think Different”

Drive carefully, you only have one *.

Brewwitch, you just demonstrated why that is one of the best ad slogans ever. You’re still talking about it after all these years. The grammar error makes it memorable. Also, assuming they used it that was for poetic license, I think it flows better that way. If there were more words, the ‘ly’ might be more important.

FACT CHECK (remember them, I might snark, if I was so inclined). Apple computer ended up fielding many questions about what their ad agency had in mind.

From the Apple web site:

Question: Are you aware that “Think different” is bad grammar? You should say “Think differently”!

Answer: Although some might want “different” to perform as an adverb in this phrase, complete with an “ly” ending, Apple and its advertising agency intend it as a fanciful category, just as we might say “Think yellow,” “Think change” or “Think playful.”

Here’s an illuminating quote from an interview with George Gribbin, legendary copy supervisor of the Young & Rubicam advertising agency and creator of the ungrammatical but highly successful slogan “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”:

“The American language is a good, salty, homespun, colorful language. And it is that way because of the vernacular. There’s just nothing like pieces of the vernacular in advertising, or in any other kind of writing. It’s not just using the vernacular, it’s using the color of the life around you in a fresh way.”

Think vernacular.

Think different.

People have been throwing “Frisbees” around for decades despite Frisbee is a Named product and there are other disks to toss around. I think, however, it’s worse. So if you excuse me for a while, I’ll Think INside the box for a few minutes.

God help me if he ever sees leet speak or texting shorthand.

Some Facebook users would like to put Facebook out of its misery after their latest change.

Nouns into verbs, and verbs into nouns, is just part of the linguistic redundancy of the English language. It’s nothing new. But still harsh on the ears, particularly when it bespeaks laziness or aggrandizement of thought.

All he did was shoot the screen. You could still use an external monitor.

Shoot it again , I think it’s still Twitterin’ !

Edwin Newman is spinning in his grave!!!

can we forget Howard Cosell “Tell it like it is” ? ah….memories

I thought it was a hilarious cartoon…..

LOLLL at Jim!

I still think the worst thing is using the acronyms when typing (or testing) I can’t figure out what half of them even mean. I have figured out what “lol” means.

Gramps is a right-winger NRA nuT!

pawnraider said, about 6 outcries ago

“I wonder what Danae would have done? Or better yet, WWDD-What Would Danae Do?”

You could internet it as: www.DD.net.

On the contrary dsom8. The English language can be a beautiful thing. Sadly it is the American Language that is gaining great redundancy.

So Grampa smoked it because he was disgusted with Grammar? I guess 50 years with the old bag finally caused him to break.

Used to think “lol” meant “lots of love”. Now I have no friends.

Going postal on the Internet.

In Herb Caen’s day, it meant “little old ladies”. That was a few years ago, of course.

that from a generation that gave us SNAFU, MAD, and FYI? I’m sure he’s verbed enough nouns in his time.

So, are you all taking this too serious or too seriously?

Grammar’s bad enough – I hate when they start abusing the words themselves, such as when a commercial claims their soup is made with “real ingredients” …

I’m sure we’ve all heard of ’ Virgin Wool ‘, (where the sheep ran faster than the shepherd),

but what is ’ Virgin Vinyl ’ ?

This is why the Academies of language in France and in Spain have such difficulties with coming up with “new” authentic words to keep American English from contaminating their precious language vocabularies …

Hey, richardelguru Hamlet and Nazi literature reference are a bit beyond a comic reader…too clever for your own good! :-))

Sorry, but I have to facebook out of here…!

Brings to mind Bucky Fuller, when he wrote the essay I Seem to Be a Verb…

The cross-pollination of verbs and nouns in English is one of the language’s strengths. Without it we could neither talk the talk nor walk the walk.

Once at work (work/work) I was chatting (chat/chat) with two young Brazilian co-workers who were thrilled (thrill/thrill) to be in America practicing (practice/practice) their English. (Okay, that’s enough verb/noun pairs.)

We were discussing a software error for which I had to submit a bug report called a UCF. When I said I was going to UCF the problem, the two Brazilians were absolutely excited that English could do that since Portuguese didn’t allow it.

As for the influence of English on other languages, here are some words I have heard recently on German-language TV newscasts on Deutsche Welle: Fitness; Airline; Hobby; Tricks (as in helpful hints); Lobbyist; Service (as in customer service); Highlights (meaning a summary, not hair coloring); Skyline; Skylight; Last-Minute; Flirt (both noun and verb with added -en); Worst-Case-Scenario (my favorite); and the almost universal Okay.

English isn’t perfect, but it sure beats having to memorize grammatical gender (as in German’s male Pencil, female Pen, and neuter Girl).

fbmce - Virgin Vinyl is vinyl that is free of recycled material. It is/was common practice to grind up old records and add that to the pressing compound. I own some albums that have bits of ground-up labels in them. Obviously, it affects the sound.

With regard to turning nouns into verbs, it is always jarring the first time you hear one. I still cringe at “growing” a business, but I’ll bet that there was a time when no one would have said “I’m going to hammer a few nails” or “carpet a room.”