Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Yes, it's time for another break from candidate-bashing to have a go at usage mistakes by journalists and writers who should know better.  This is mostly for fun, and I hope you'll take it that way.  But I have to say it DOES vex me a little…

Here are tonight's four more-or-less-random selections:

It's time for another installment of "Grammar In The News".  Unfortunately, this is just too easy.  I'm trying to take just three examples of inexcusably poor grammar or usage by a real news source (that should know better) at a time, so here is today's crop:

Every once in a while, my peeve-o-meter fills up, and I have to do a diary about common grammatical and usage mistakes.  I'm restricting this to news sources and other public, edited things, because these people ought to know better.

Bush says of his father:

Asked whether he consults constantly with his father, Bush said: "No ... He understands what I know, that the level of information I have relative to the level of information most other people have, including himself, is significant and that he trusts me to make decisions."

A comment thread in kevin lyda's Ken Mehlman diary (http://www.dailykos.com/...) got me thinking about how we, the lovers of equal-opportunity and democracy, seize on language variations as a means of making ourselves look better or others look worse, and I thought I'd give this a try, although I might very well get laughed or screamed off the site by my fellow kossacks.

    "Why the bloody hell do we need a diary on English grammar?" you may ask. "Unless you're going to talk about English-only politics or something, it has no connection to politics or democratic society!"

My answer after the flip...

The vote was 63-34:

After a emotional debate fraught with symbolism, the Senate yesterday voted to make English the "national language" of the United States, declaring that no one has a right to federal communications or services in a language other than English except for those already guaranteed by law.

The measure, approved 63 to 34, directs the government to "preserve and enhance" the role of English, without altering current laws that require some government documents and services be provided in other languages. Opponents, however, said it could negate executive orders, regulations, civil service guidances and other multilingual ordinances not officially sanctioned by acts of Congress.

Here's a bright idea. Instead of wasting time on "symbolic" measures, why doesn't Congress do something about the millions of illiterate Americans who can't read or speak English (and no, Rep. Tancredo, I'm not talking about Mexican immigrants).

Last year, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy found that 11 million adults were nonliterate in English. Another thirty million adults were literate only at the most basic level, meaning they had only the most simple and concrete literacy skills.  What's the point of a law mandating all government papers be in English when millions of Americans still can't read or comprehend the document anyway? Oh yeah, I know the point. It's call midterm elections.

If Congress cares so damn much about the English language and having Americans learn English, maybe they should drop "symbolic" measures and start giving our educational system the attention it deserves so that we may finally rid ourselves of this scourge of illiteracy that is plaguing our nation.