#updating tags because tumblr is a place of neverending reorganisation

[everythingisarabbithole]

just remembered the song (parody song?) ''word crimes'' (i think. by weird al yankovic idk) and beloved ELL student friend, whatever do you make of it? would very much like to know your thoughts :3

alright here we go!! welcome to my saturday night talk show.

thoughts, thoughts... first up, a disclaimer. I had not heard the song before, and this is all just what I thought when listening to it for the first time (and I guess a few more times while writing). I am also not an admirable student.

now that that's out of the way: the first thing that came to mind was that the word "crimes" is rather harsh! as if it were a punishable crime... well, sg is known as a fine country. (how much would I have to pay for the improper english in this post?)

If you can't write in the proper way

the "proper" way is context-dependent! Here, however, it likely refers to the standard variety used in some particular region, probably Standard American English or Standard British English.

oh, but here's the catch: those aren't the only varieties around, are they? especially with the number of people around the world that speak English nowadays. What do we speak? can we call it British English? debatable. (but it probably doesn't matter what we call it. anyway, the last part of this is relevant here, I think).

perhaps we should say the a proper way--no no no, "proper" still suggests "correct". here we go full circle: what's correct is context-dependent!

Maybe you flunked that class

flunked? like literally? sounds unfortunate

And maybe now you find That people mock you online

The really funny ones are those where they go back and forth telling each other off in the comments of a completely unrelated post.

in my opinion? it's the internet. over half the world is here, so language and opinions surrounding language vary. I'd rather find other things to do than give strangers unsolicited (and subjective) advice on language. unless it's a language exchange site (where by all means give feedback but not mock), I think it's... it's... I don't know, these people are trolling.

Gonna familiarize you

so... is gonna acceptable "proper" language because of its high use?

(not entirely relevant but. if I had written familiarize in primary school, that would not have been accepted. but they no longer do that, if I'm not wrong. American English is getting more trendy now, eh?)

You'll learn the definitions of nouns and prepositions

oh I still remember that preposition song!

Now, did I stammer

hm. might not be a problem with literacy

You should know when it's "less" or it's "fewer"

now this reminds me of the thing with the Tesco checkout signs ("ten items or less", which if you go by the books, is ungrammatical) in one of our exam texts

Like I could care less

I've never heard this. (either it's not said here, or it's not said in my circle. both are possible)

You'd better slow down and use the right pronoun

which would be...?

Your participle's danglin'

hm. fair

although I imagine this matters only for formal stuff. in other cases? context fills things in, and the main goal is communication, I think. If that's achieved even with a dangling particle, so be it. (we don't want another chain of funny comments)

If you really wanna, leave out that Oxford comma

I would say that I use those pretty often. why? I don't know. If you've put a comma after everything else, why be quirky and end the pattern? (or maybe I'm just indecisive as to whether I'm actually ending the list or not.)

why would you want to leave it out?

Use your spellchecker

ew. it doesn't do what I want it to. no thank you (at least for writing creative fiction and personal things.)

You should never write words using numbers unless you're seven

is there something I'm not getting? (I would not be surprised if that were true.) I don't think the majority of seven year olds know how to do that.

Well anyway, I think it's really cool when words are written with numbers! what's that... does it fall under rebus? They're creative. It takes some smarts both to come up with them and to understand them. and I do find abbreviations/initialisms/acronyms fascinating in the same way! (unfortunately, I am rather terrible at remembering new ones. Now, I'm going on a little tangent here. a friend asked why I don't exactly text--how do I put it--more like a stereotypical person belonging to Generation Z. First of all, everyone writes differently. second, you want the kind of thing that appears in those lists of "teen slang words" and the like? I can pull it off quite well. however, it's not what I'm used to. I have a theory it's a tumblr thing. and possibly school. I shall not elaborate.)

Well, you should hire some cunning linguist to help you distinguish what is proper English

That won't work. Linguists argue about it too.

Time to learn your homophones is past due

why?

Always say "to whom" Don't ever say "to who"

This has unfortunately been drilled into me, resulting in a slightly uncomfortable feeling whenever I see "to who". But recall that I believe it's a waste of time to argue with people.

but the following... were not brought to my attention from an early age.

I hope you never use quotation marks for emphasis

then what am I supposed to write in reading comprehension?

I hope you can tell If you're doing good or doing well

eh?

And I thought that you'd gotten it through your skull What's figurative and what's literal

now that's taking the fun out of English. people like to play with language! I absolutely love the power of figurative language to keep boredom at bay. (And due to the productive nature of language, we have a growing number of tools at out disposal to do just that.)

I read your e-mail It's quite apparent Your grammar's errant You're incoherent

that's mean! And perfectly grammatical passages can be incoherent as well.

Think you should only Write in emoji

That's a tall task. And if I remember correctly, Gretchen McCulloch mentioned in her book Because Internet that she had considered giving a presentation in emoji but realised the limitations of emojis. They're not quite a language due to the many possible interpretations. There's no agreed-upon way to read emojis. (And, again if I'm remembering this correctly, she described them as gestures instead. Ah, here we go.)

Never mind I give up

sometimes that's hard too, especially for the rules that have been ingrained in you

@rainonthehillside @litanyofthemartyrs a penny for your thoughts? (optional)