By the time many of you see this, U.S. national good grammar day will have come and gone.....
http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2008/03/04/Features/Good-Grammar.Gets.Its.Day-3249247.shtmlGood grammar gets its day
By: Andrew Dunn, Features Editor
Posted: 3/4/08
When sophomore Ben Thompson is listening to a story, he won't hesitate to interrupt it in the name of grammar.
"If they say, 'Sally and me went to the movies,' I'll stop them and say, 'Sally and I.' It can be at the most crucial part of the story, but I will stop it and fix it," he said.
"Dude, I hate when people misuse grammar."
Today, magicians of the modifiers and geniuses of the gerunds can take heart, for it is National Grammar Day.
Sponsored by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar and the Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia, the day is intended to honor the English language and to emphasize the importance of proper syntax.
"If we don't respect and honor the rules of English, we lose our ability to communicate clearly and well," the day's official Web site states.
"In short, we invite mayhem, misery, madness and inevitably even more bad things that start with letters other than M."
How to celebrate? The grammar society recommends spreading the gospel of grammar.
"If you see a sign with a catastrophic apostrophe, send a kind note to the storekeeper," the Web site states. "If your local newscaster says, 'Between you and I,' set him straight with a friendly e-mail."
Also suggested are grammar potluck dinners, serving high-fiber foods.
They're good for the colon.
But some students at UNC take their grammar a bit more seriously.
Sophomore Stephanie Smith said she became dedicated to proper English during her junior year of high school.
She is particularly bothered by errors with "lie" and "lay" but enjoys parsing the differences between "who" and "whom."
Now, Smith said, she has trained herself to pay attention to grammatical errors in her friends' speech and corrects them when necessary.
"I don't say it to be superior or anything; I say it to help them," Smith said.
"At this age there is so much opportunity. We need to know how to speak intelligently."
She said she has converted her best friend and housemate, sophomore Elena Beidler, into a grammar aficionado.
"We talk about grammar all the time now," Smith said.
She added that grammar errors are not hard to fix, if people would just start learning basic grammar principles and noticing the errors in their speech.
"It's so effortless once you learn the fundamentals," she said. "It becomes a habit."
But UNC English professor Connie Elbe was not quite so extreme.
"I am not certain that formal training in grammar is necessary, or even important," Elbe wrote in an e-mail.
"I do think that the precise, clear and careful use of language is important. Insofar as the effective use of the language requires attention to grammatical structure, to that extent grammar is important."
Contact the Features Editor
at features@unc.edu.
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