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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jim Kershner: Bad grammar doesn’t mean it’s a bad column

Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

1. I been hearing recently that 50 percent of new young employees lack writing skills. They have not mastered the key principals of English usage. Young people, in other words, are literally illiterate.

2. So I’m doing my part to alleviate and/or exacerbate this situation by presenting my Second Annual Bad Grammar column, in which you, the readers, get to pick out all of the writing gaffes contained hereto. This time, however, I am providing the answers at the end, so that teachers can use it as a Writing Aide while they go over it with there students.

3. I’m doing it this way because, in my First Annual Bad Grammar column, readers found 889 errors, which, frankly, ticked me off, because I had inserted only 77. Anyways, this time I have inserted at least three errors per paragraph, so your job is to pick them out and hopefully ignore the errors that aren’t on porpoise. The paragraphs are numbered for your convenience.

4. These gaffes can be one of bad grammar, bad punctuation or a similar crime against good usage. Sometimes you might see a line that looks unclear or inchoate, but that’s just my normal writing style. For it to count, they have to be actual errors.

5. We can all agree that we are facing a literal flood of bad writing in the workplace. This is no small problem, since communication is absolutely essential to the smooth running of our nation’s business. If we don’t do something to improve our childrens’ writing skills, we will soon find ourselves losing ground to Canada for example where kids actually know how to read.

6. Part of the problem is that young people are literally writing as if they are sending text messages. They might write, “How R U? U R 1 rockin’ dude, dude! Let’s get 2gether 2nite!” That kind of writing might be exceptable, accept for the fact that this is in a memo to the V.P. of marketing. That’s a breech of corporate etiquette.

7. Also, people are so accustomed to writing quick e-mails to friends that they get careless and negligible when writing business letters to clients. Thusly, they might be all, “Oh, hey, whassup, how are you?” when they should actually be writing, “I trust you are in good spirits and in impeccable health.” Using the correct language will make you seem smarter than you actually are, the goal of every piece of corporate communication.

8. In conclusion, I hope you scour the above paragraphs carefully for mistakes. Remember, there are at least three errors per paragraph, a large proportion of whom I made intentionally. So if you find more, please don’t get mad and cancel your prescription. Just consider yourself one of those rare grammatically-gifted Americans who knows the difference, literally, between literal and figurative.

The answers

1. “I have been” instead of “I been,” which is acceptable only if your name is “Ben.” “Principles” instead of “principals.” Young people are not “literally illiterate,” since that would mean they can’t read or write at all, although I might let that one slide under the secondary definition of “illiterate” meaning “ignorant or uneducated.”

2. “Herein” instead of “hereto.” “Writing Aid” not “Writing Aide.” “Their students” not “there students.”

3. “Anyway” instead of “Anyways,” which is a capital offense. “Hopefully” should almost always be changed to “I hope” or, in this case, axed entirely because it makes no sense at all. “On purpose,” not “on porpoise,” which would be, literally, on Flipper.

4. “Gaffes” are plural, but “one of” suddenly reverts incorrectly to singular. “Incoherent,” not “inchoate,” which means “in the early stages.” “For it to count” is also a mismatched singular-plural pair.

5. It should be a figurative flood, not a “literal flood,” which implies that bad writing has over-topped an actual levy. “Childrens’ ” should be “children’s” because the word “children” is already plural. “For example” should be set apart by commas.

6. Ha! Caught you! “Literally” is correct here because young people are actually writing as if they are texting. “Exceptable” should be “acceptable.” “Accept” should be “except. “Breech” should be “breach,” since breech means “buttocks.” (The entire text message is, of course, wrong from start to finish.)

7. “Negligent” instead of “negligible,” which means unimportant or trifling. “Thus,” not “thusly,” although even that sounds pretentious. “They might be all” is just plain dumb. (“Oh hey, whassup, how are you?” is wrong on so many levels that I am not even counting it).

8. “Which” instead of “whom.” “Subscription” instead of “prescription.” And finally, “grammatically-gifted” does not require a hyphen, which every grammatically gifted reader already knows.