#grammar nerds

[lucky1013]

Celebrating Pride and the Oxford Comma all in one go 🌈

[littlestsnicket]

While working together at Antwhisle Aquatics Rhetorical Advice and Research Center, Josephine and Lemony fight so much over whether you can start a sentence with a conjunction (“It’s a valid stylistic choice!” “It’s against the rules!”) that it escalates to a duel to the death (with fencing foils (without the safety tips, obviously)). They are only both still alive because Ike forcibly seperated and distracted them (Lemony with a new translation of Baudelaire poetry (because that’s something he gets super into post breakup) and Josephine with a slightly awkward dinner and a nice Italian restaurant (because they are not quite dating yet)).

[whilereadingandwalking]

I hope that Thursday is treating you all well! I was pleased last night to discover that I’m already pretty well-versed in the Punctuation chapter of the Chicago Manual of Style. Probably because of my love for the semicolon, the em dash, and the never-ending sentence, I’m pretty good at identiying when and where it all should be used.

[hdslibrary]

Oh no! It’s the Grammar Police!

This mustashioed scoundrel was found on a blank page in a grammar book from 1686.

You too would be driven to doodle if you were assigned a 500-page treatise on the English particle.

Walker, William, 1623-1684.   A treatise of English particles, shewing much of the variety of their significations and uses in English; and how to render them into Latin according to the propriety and elegancy of that language; with a praxis upon the same.  London, George Pawlet, 1686.

[whilereadingandwalking]

Reading the entire Grammar chapter and the entire Punctuation chapter of the Chicago Manual of Style and then doing homework for them all in one week is no easy feat, but I'm really enjoying it too. The 17th CMS is beautiful—the paper is so creamy. I'm learning that I remember a lot about syntax and verbs, and almost nothing at all about prepositions. The word usage section of the Grammar chapter is also fascinating, and so, so useful. In the last two days, I've read about using the "they" pronoun, respecting gender pronouns of the subject, and bias-free language; I've read about how it's totally fine to start sentences with conjunctions and end them with prepositions. It's both a review in what I once knew and shaking up what I was taught in high school by my stuffy senior-year English teacher. ✨✨✨

[whilereadingandwalking]

Associate, gesturing at my brand new 17th edition Chicago Manual of Style as they ring it up: “What do you call people who are really into this kind of thing? Grammarphiles?” Me: “I usually just cut right to the straightforward, ‘grammar nerds’.” Associate, nodding thoughtfully: “Both do the job.” For those who are curious, logophile is the lover of words, a grammarian is an expert or specialist of grammar, and obviously, bibliophile is the lover of books, and all of those combined into one long squeal as I first opened my new, shiny, gorgeous-papered, Chicago Manual of Style, which I’ll be using for my editing certificate classes. Is it beautiful, or is it beautiful?

[ilovebooks257]

I'm proud to be a nerd. Sing it from the rooftops if you're a theatre nerd. Whisper it in the library if you're a book nerd and tap the erasers if you're a math nerd. Correct my grammar if needed, because those grammar nerds are not playing.

[jondgriff-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc) This video is for all you grammar nerds! Like me!