# Grammar Nazis
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [November 24, 2004, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547 "2004-11-24T22:59:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/1 "2004-11-24T22:59:35Z")
I am related to one of these grammar Nazis he is a distant cousin. I can’t stand these people. I don’t like to be corrected on how to talk when I’m just trying to hang out. I understand that good grammar is important but is bad grammar really that offensive?
Apparently I say the word “Like” and “Dude” too much as does my brother, I was told so by my genius cousin.
The only thing my brother and I could do once we were aware of how many times we said “Like” too much is to say it even more, intentionally just to piss off our genius boy “cousin”.
---
### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/2 "2004-11-24T23:08:08Z")
> [@START](#):
>
> I am related to one of these grammar Nazis he is a distant cousin. I can’t stand these people. I don’t like to be corrected on how to talk when I’m just trying to hang out. I understand that good grammar is important but is bad grammar really that offensive?
> Apparently I say the word “Like” and “Dude” too much as does my brother, I was told so by my genius cousin.
> The only thing my brother and I could do once we were aware of how many times we said “Like” too much is to say it even more, intentionally just to piss off our genius boy “cousin”.
Next time you can point out to him that it isn’t actually your grammar that he’s correcting, it’s your locution. That should give him pause.
If I were you I wouldn’t even give him the chance to go after my punctuation, though.
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### Author:  [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/3 "2004-11-24T23:10:20Z")
This should read:
I am related to one of th **o** se grammar Nazis\*\*;\*\* he is a distant cousin. I can’t stand these people. I don’t like to be corrected on how to talk when I’m just trying to hang out. I understand that good grammar is important\*\*,\*\* but is bad grammar really that offensive?
Apparently I say the word **s** “ **l** ike” and “ **d** ude” too much\*\*,\*\* as does my brother\*\*;\*\* I was told so by my genius cousin.
The only thing my brother and I could do once we were aware of how many times we said “ **l** ike” too much (delete this phrase) is to say it even more, intentionally\*\*,\*\* just to piss off our genius boy “cousin”. \<–not technically incorrect, but standard American punctuation dictates that you place the period inside the quotation marks
😉
---
### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/4 "2004-11-24T23:11:12Z")
You know, I’m like a retired Professional Grammar Nazi. I like agree, you know, with you, dude. Your cousin should, you know, have like left it to your immediate family or your teachers to like lecture you about your speech tick. Like where does he get off, you know?
But like it’s not an easy habit to break, dude. If you use it, you know, like in casual conversation a lot, then it’s like easy to forget that you are doing it all the time, you know, even in like, you know, the courtroom or like in classroom lectures.
But you’re like right, you know?
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/5 "2004-11-24T23:17:34Z")
I second **Lamia** ’s comment on your punctuation
…“cousin”?
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/6 "2004-11-24T23:19:29Z")
> [@START](#):
>
> I am related to one of these grammar Nazis he is a distant cousin. I can’t stand these people. I don’t like to be corrected on how to talk when I’m just trying to hang out. I understand that good grammar is important but is bad grammar really that offensive?
> Apparently I say the word “Like” and “Dude” too much as does my brother, I was told so by my genius cousin.
> The only thing my brother and I could do once we were aware of how many times we said “Like” too much is to say it even more, intentionally just to piss off our genius boy “cousin”.
Y R U sew bothered? Like, dude, hew cairs?
Eye 8 Nazis bcos of the jenoside. U know?
More seriously, it’s useful to give an educated impression of yourself sometimes. If you develop sloppy speech habits, they tend to persist on occasions such as job interviews. :eek:
If your cousin is just trying to annoy you, then that is indeed frustrating. However you betray a certain insouciance yourself by using ‘genius’ as a derogatory epithet.
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### Author:  [@Keapon\_Laffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keapon_Laffin)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/7 "2004-11-24T23:24:42Z")
> [@Zoe](#):
>
> You know, I’m like a retired Professional Grammar Nazi. I like agree, you know, with you, dude. Your cousin should, you know, have like left it to your immediate family or your teachers to like lecture you about your speech tick. Like where does he get off, you know?
>
> But like it’s not an easy habit to break, dude. If you use it, you know, like in casual conversation a lot, then it’s like easy to forget that you are doing it all the time, you know, even in like, you know, the courtroom or like in classroom lectures.
>
> But you’re like right, you know?
Totally, dude. I, like, understood what you just said man, but like, everyone else was just spouting, like, gibberish, you know?
---
### Author:  [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/8 "2004-11-24T23:32:40Z")
> [@glee](#):
>
> …If your cousin is just trying to annoy you, then that is indeed frustrating. However you betray a certain insouciance yourself by using ‘genius’ as a derogatory epithet.
Derogatory? I mean that literally, he is a genius, I think he might be Cecil.
---
### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/9 "2004-11-24T23:49:40Z")
> [@START](#):
>
> Derogatory? I mean that literally, he is a genius, I think he might be Cecil.
Ah. Well clearly your meaning didn’t come across as you intended.
I hesitate to continue in case you get riled… 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/10 "2004-11-24T23:52:58Z")
So who else is now singing [“My Perfect Cousin” by the Undertones](http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/u/undertones4451/myperfectcousin204993.html) ?
I think the OP may be a missing verse they only included the the 12" remix.
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### Author:  [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/11 "2004-11-24T23:54:03Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#):
>
> they only included the the 12" remix.
**in** the 12" remix.
---
### Author:  [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/12 "2004-11-25T00:10:40Z")
> [@continuity eror](#):
>
> This should read:
>
> I am related to one of th **o** se grammar Nazis\*\*;\*\* he is a distant cousin. I can’t stand these people. I don’t like to be corrected on how to talk when I’m just trying to hang out. I understand that good grammar is important\*\*,\*\* but is bad grammar really that offensive?
> Apparently I say the word **s** “ **l** ike” and “ **d** ude” too much\*\*,\*\* as does my brother\*\*;\*\* I was told so by my genius cousin.
> The only thing my brother and I could do once we were aware of how many times we said “ **l** ike” too much (delete this phrase) is to say it even more, intentionally\*\*,\*\* just to piss off our genius boy “cousin”. \<–not technically incorrect, but standard American punctuation dictates that you place the period inside the quotation marks
>
> 😉
Ouch, that was painful ☹ . Would you believe that I am passing english and have never failed a test. That deleted phrase slipped past my editing and proofreading process…but then so did everything else, still I noticed the deleted phrase before you said anything about it.
---
### Author:  [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/13 "2004-11-25T00:57:53Z")
I can promise you, START, that if you ever see someone write down your words without editing, you’ll realize for yourself just how much you overuse certain verbal tic-type phrases. As a court reporter, it’s my job to do just that, and like, you know, when like someone like uses, you know, a word like so many times, you know, it becomes like incoherent, you know what I mean? My personal record was someone who managed to use “you know” seven times in one sentence.
It’s okay to lower your standards when you’re just hanging out as long as you don’t allow that to become your permanent standards. Because someday when you want to get a real job? That will be noticed, I promise you.
---
### Author:  [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/14 "2004-11-25T01:01:31Z")
C’mon dudes, you guys are, like, way too hard on the dude. He, like, is just trying to, like, vent or like, something. Like, you know when you, like, just like, try and vent and like, people are, like, all up in, like, your space and stuff? I can’t believe you would, like, be so hard on the guy. Like, c’mon.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/15 "2004-11-25T03:30:46Z")
Frankly, I’ve seen a very clear pattern with people who go out of their way to correct “grammar”: they know very little about grammar (or usage or style or any elements of the language) themselves. They will get especially irate at perfectly good usages (e.g., “safe deposit box,” splitting an infinitive) and constantly try to force others to conform to their ignorance.
The most obvious example currently is Lynne Truss’s “Eats, Shoots & Leaves.” I opened a page at random and immediately found a gross mistake of fact that could have been researched in two minutes on the Internet\*. There were many more issues, plus she never even followed her _own_ rules consistently.
That is typical. It gets so that whenever someone talks about a “grammatical” pet peeve, I know immediately that they’re going to get it wrong.
\*She was whining that “Lands’ End” used the apostrophe incorrectly, and that they never admitted their mistake. If you go to Lands’ End’s web page, they quite clearly say the misplaced apostrophe was an error, but that they stuck with it, originally because they couldn’t afford the reprint the labels, and later because they became known that way.
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### Author:  [@Yamirskoonir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yamirskoonir)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/16 "2004-11-25T04:18:29Z")
Point out to him that professionals are often latched on to verbal tics as well. Case in point:
In high school, I had a chemistry teacher that was a non-native speaker. His tic/English crutch was “okay.” It often went like this:
> [@Impossible-to-follow Chemistry Teacher](#):
>
> Okay, the symbol for gold is “Au,” okay? Okay. Now, okay, when writing this symbol, okay…okay, you need to write it like this, okay? Okay…okay, now when you…okay.
It got so bad that my friend and I began keeping a tally to see how many times he said it. The record: 186 times in a single 55 minute class.
Yeah, I didn’t learn a damn thing from him!
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### Author:  [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/17 "2004-11-25T04:54:08Z")
A joke:
A student from (fill in your favorite place known for ignorance here) goes to Harvard. He meets another student at Harvard, and asks, “Where’s the library at?”
The other student sneers at him, “I don’t know where you’re from, but here at Harvard, we learn not to end a sentence with a preposition.”
The first student says, “Oh yeah? Well, where’s the library, asshole?”
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/18 "2004-11-25T06:31:14Z")
The Harvard man may have been an asshole, but the visitor was still wrong.
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### Author:  [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/19 "2004-11-25T07:35:12Z")
I know a dude that says “fuckin” more than I say “like”.
Fuckin, I got up this morning and fuckin, my mom was in the fuckin kitchen…
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### Author:  [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2004, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-nazis/276547/20 "2004-11-25T10:55:30Z")
> [@Yamirskoonir](#):
>
> Point out to him that professionals are often latched on to verbal tics as well. Case in point:
>
> In high school, I had a chemistry teacher that was a non-native speaker. His tic/English crutch was “okay.” It often went like this: It got so bad that my friend and I began keeping a tally to see how many times he said it. The record: 186 times in a single 55 minute class.
>
> Yeah, I didn’t learn a damn thing from him!
Haaaaahaaaahaa!!!
I had a history teacher that did something similar. He would ask questions. and then answer them.
“When was the war of 1812…It was in 1812”.
"What was the result of the shot on Fort Sumter(yes, too lazy to look up correct spelling),.it was…blah blah blah civil war.
My friend and I would keep a running tally of “whats, whys, hows” and so on. I don’t remember a single thing he asked or answered (the questions above are only examples, not ones he actually asked).
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