Grammar Ninja: Parallel Structure

Grammar Ninja is back with a rant inspired by a sign posted at the Ottawa airport.

Grammar Ninja: Encyclopedias and Babies

Don't be deceived by my radio silence, my grammar-loving friends. Grammar Ninja is alive and well and biting her tongue on a regular basis. Today's rant is short & sweet.

Grammar Ninja: Don't give up!

A friend of mine recently shared her frustration with an e-conversation she was having with someone who firmly believed that spelling, grammar, and punctuation were not worth fussing about. This educated woman (former linguist) genuinely had no problem with such spellings as awsome, discusting, and rubarb.

This person also felt that loose and lose would soon be interchangeable as valid alternative spellings.

Excuse me while I grab my smelling salts and drape myself carefully across this divan.

Grammar Ninja: Who's and Whose

Since none of you has sent me a grammar question (one wonders what it is you do all day if it is not pondering grammar), I am compelled, nay, obliged, to come up with a topic of my own choosing. So here's today's discussion: who's versus whose.

Grammar Ninja: Loving Latin

Whenever I see spelling or grammatical errors, I have to remind myself that not everyone took Latin for two years in high school and for another year in university. (I also studied Old Norse for a semester.)

Introducing the Grammar Ninja!

To start with, I object to the title "Grammar Nazi:" it implies that those of us who love grammar will stop at nothing to exert our delusional ideals. That is not the case with me. While I have an OCD-style compulsion to notice typos and grammatical errors, I care more about the people in my life, so I make no comment, most of the time.

Also: my ideals are not delusional.

Dear adverb, I miss you. Terribly.

I keep looking for you, but you are nowhere to be seen.

By cropping tight around the subject you eliminate the background "noise", ensuring the subject gets the viewer's undivided attention.

I want to crop tightly, but can only crop . . .  tight. Crop tight . . . what? Crop tight pants? It feels unfinished, unsatisfying. Unsatisfactory.

From girlswithslingshots.com

See, now, he would've lost me with the "I want you so bad" text. Surely he wants me badly. Unless . . . he wants me to be bad? Oh. I may have misjudged this one.

From Twitter

Does he mean that it's always a fake attractive love triangle that ends in murder? Ugh. I just don't know.

Twitter, of course, is not the best place to find examples of good grammar. In fact, I went there specifically looking for examples of adverb abuse for this blog post. I was not disappointed.

From FML

In the case of this tale of woe, I think she (or he?) got what she deserved, because of two errors:

1. he may snore loud snorts, but if the word "snorts" is missing, he must snore loudly; and 
2. he doesn't lay on his side, he lies on his side. Either that, or there is a noun missing: he lays [his arm] on his side.

Oh, adverb, you are as fleeting as spring snow, as elusive as a rainbow. Bravely you struggle against grammatical entropy, valiantly will I fight for your cause.

Follow Up: Lay vs. Lie

When I did my earlier post about Lay vs. Lie, I didn't bring up the big confusion of the phrase, "lay me down." Many of you may think that phrase is incorrect grammar, but it's not because, in this case, "me" is the object of the verb "to lay."

And here's a little music to help you remember this one.

Won't you lay me down in the tall grass
And let me do my stuff

Also, this little verse is grammatically correct, if a little traumatizing, what with the whole dying-in-your-sleep thing.

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Without the "me" the correct verse would have to be:

Now I lie down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

But it just doesn't scan, does it?

Does this help? Or does it just muddy the waters?