The Angry Grammarian

by Jeffrey Barg

Emphasis Addled

Great moments in Internet grammar humor, take one: It’s been around since 2005, but a number of folks have recently sent me links to the “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks (quotation-marks.blogspot.com). Like the user-generated AngryJournalist.com, its genius lies in its simplicity. It’s like Overheard in Philly (overheardinphilly.blogspot.com), but without all the racism.

Readers submit snapshots of ridiculous signs from around the world—but this isn’t just any old poorly written signage. Certain bad sign grammar—“Mens Room,” “CD’s for Sale,” etc.—while unfortunate, is understandable. But it’s those over-quotation-marked signs that truly baffle us. What’s the rationale? They’re clearly thinking about punctuation already, so what grammar rule are they screwing up so royally that they think every emphasized word needs quotation marks around it?

Some spotted on the blog: “THIS IS ANOTHER ‘SAFE’ PERINI BUILDING COMPANY JOB SITE.” In other words, wear a hard hat. Outside a gentlemen’s club: “COME PARTY WITH ‘PRETTY LADIES.’” Read: Is that an exclamation point in that dancer’s G-string, or is “she” just happy to see me?

Great moments in Internet grammar humor, take two: Recent Onion headline: “Commas, turning up, everywhere.” Includes a quotation from “William Sa,fire.” Har.

What’s this over vs. more than business? Is it really such a crime to say “you get over 20 letters from readers a week” rather than “you get more than 20 letters from readers a week”?

Over vs. more than: grammatical anathema to some, total WTF to others.

This is one debate that really divides writers and editors: Writers say everyone uses “over,” while editors argue “more than” is more precise and elegant, and therefore preferable. The writers counter that the editors are just looking for crap to change because they need to make themselves feel worthwhile. Everyone ends up bitter. Hooray!

But the editors win this one. “Over” is already overworked as a preposition and a prefix, when trusty ol’ “more than” is just sitting there waiting to work as your comparative. “More than” is cleaner, and that’s more than enough reason to go with it.