h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/ar-pos1.htm

Take a close look at the so-called 'high school teacher'

B

I got to the quote "regarded as a dangerously permissive work by conservative grammarians" and couldn't continue. I've got images of rebel grammarians launching daring night attacks on publishing houses and tippexing out commas.

So he would just love it if a pronoun couldn't refer back to a noun in the possessive case.

Well I'm pleased that that is all sorted out...

Ah, yes. This would be the same advance grammarian who gave us: "We've finished third in the League, and you can't do better than that".

B

You won't believe this. I actually know Kevin Keegan! He runs a high school quizbowl tournament in my area. Also a quizbowl TV show.

...and he is generally considered a bit crazy.


Also, the Washington Post is my local newspaper, but I have no recollection of the article.

You may not know this, LB, but over here in the UK, Kevin Keegan is a very well-known soccer manager. He was one of the best players in Europe in the 1970s.

And he played for Scunthorpe.

B

and he is also now a nationally know pedant.

The ironic thing is that OUR Kevin Keegan is one of the worst manglers of the English Language on TV.

B

"He's using his strength there, and that's his strength, his strength."

"The referee was vertically 15 feet away"

http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Palms/6687/keggy.html

B

Strange.

Did Kevin Keegan not once write a book?

I think it was entitled 'Sick as a parrot.'

What's the betting that the grammar within is impeccable?

Having grown up listening to my English-teacher mother constantly correct my appalling English, I feel for his entire class. Having read various books on the development of the English language, it's become evident that the majority of the rules of English grammar were made up for one of two reasons:

1: To make English fit the grammaical rules of Latin.
2: Because some pedant wanted to make life difficult for generations of school-children.

As English is an evolving language (which is the language's main strength), the only usage that is correct is the usage commonly understood to be correct. Does 'presently' mean 'now' or 'very soon'? Can one use 'hopefully' at the beginning of a sentence? Does anyone really give a monkey's about the opinion of some glum 18th century Yorkshire parson who considered himself the world expert on the English language?

Please feel free to comment on my post. For more information as to where you can send your grammatical errors, please search the guide for 'pedant'.

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I was under the impression that another major advantage of English is that it has a significantly larger vocabulary than most languages.