Tag: English

[Updated] Rise Up! Free-form Grammar to Break Your Language Bonds

Joe McVeigh3 Comments

Too long have we been held in the chains of grammar. Too long have our oppressors, the so-called language mavens, told us what we can and cannot say! Too long!

This is the dawning of a new era, where we will no longer be slaves to our grammarians and their grammar books. This is the dawning of the Age of Avant Garde Grammar.

Free-form grammar is simple. Take the most hallowed rule of English grammar, the granddaddy of them all – that phrases must impart sensible information – and throw it out! Kill the head and the body will die!

Feel liberated, my fellow grammar slaves, for this is Liberated Grammar. You are slaves no longer!

[UPDATE – August 6, 2020] Hat tip to the Society Formerly Known as the Anti-Queens English Society and to the Proper English Foundation for helping the masses to break free from their grammatical bonds. Apologies and condolences to family and friends of the Queen’s English Society. Their death was inevitable, but it’s always sad to see a cult bite the dust.

[UPDATE – June 18, 2037]
Took while, but pre-New World Order grammar really caught, huh? People slave no government world mozzarella sticks. And hockey babies chair bring fellow scholars.

[UPDATE – June 23, 2068]
Lay dying pre-Alien Overlords grammar land law used start, oui? Time was no one mavens remember world chaos inner tube. Respect.

Translate “Suboptimal Productivity Drivers” and Win a Dictionary

Joe McVeighLeave a comment

Stan Carey of Sentence First and Macmillan Dictionary Blog fame has set up a challenge at the Macmillan Dictionary Blog. He has written a letter in “business-speak” and tasked readers to translate it. One winner will receive a Macmillan Dictionary of their choice. Below is the opening of the letter. Follow this link to read the rest and participate.

Dear employee,

It has come to our attention that productivity drivers are suboptimal, which clearly impacts performance deliverables. We have touched base with HQ and undergone a period of extensive consultation. Actioning this decision-making process requires frontminding streamlined competencies. We anticipate a needs-based harmonisation gap in employee feelings vis-à-vis these necessary outcomes, but we are tasked with maximising the ball-parking of our projected equity outcomes.

My translation of that paragraph is:

Underling,

You have failed yet again, which means the company is failing because of you. The powers that be know of your failings. They have given us the authority to act swiftly and brutally. For the good of the company, you will be granted no mercy.

Go here to see the rest of my translation.

Good luck and happy translating!

Image courtesy of the Macmillan Dictionary Blog.

Robert Burchfield. Teacher. Lexicographer. Original Gangster.

Joe McVeigh1 Comment

Before Tupac and Biggie. Before Dre and Snoop. Shit, before even Schoolly D and Ice-T, there was Robert Burchfield.

Robert Burchfield was straight gangstar. Robert Burchfield was the Suge Knight of lexicography. No, fuck that, Suge Knight is the Robert Burchfield of rapping. Respect.

Peep this: In 1957, the Oxford English Dictionary was mad out of date. The Oxford University Press needed to update that shit and they needed to do it quick. How could they call themselves a bastion of the English language when their dictionary was so old-school? Shit was whack.

The OUP knew they had to get the freshest gangsta around to edit their OED – the OG Robert Burchfield. They knew players would be hatin’ on him and his editing skillz, but they knew it had to be done. Shit would have been even more whack if they didn’t get RWB, yo.

Pictured: R to the Obert, B to the Urchfield.

Shit, you don’t think RWB knew peeps would be hating on his OED Supplement? Robert Burchfield was realer than real deal Holyfield. You think he didn’t know that shit? He knew – homeboy just didn’t care. He published that shit anywayz. It was his job to tell the world about the English language, not their job to tell him about it. Robert Burchfield took the English language and said, “It’s like and like this and like that and uh.” If punk ass bitches didn’t like it, they could come and get theirs.

And they tried to front too, writing him letters saying they would cap his ass for his edits to the OED. But all them letters were anonymous, surprise surprise, because cowards were scared of the OG Burchfield. Bitch ass death threats from fakers didn’t faze RWB, ya heard. Robert Burchfield kept rolling, slinging his dictionary papers and pimping knowledge like nobody’s bizness.

RWB went to that great editing room in the sky in 2004. But now that y’all know who the original gangsta is, you best show respect.

RIP OG RWB.