Can it be? Can it possibly be? In a world replete with tweets and texts and sound bites, is proper grammar making a comeback?
A small flurry of coverage in the media has this grammar geek throwing caution to the wind. Giddy with excitement, I teeter on a dangerous cliff of improper usage: punctuating my inward thoughts with mental exclamation points and dangling my prepositions for the world to see. Naughty, naughty!
The media circus began with the Save the Serial Comma from Extinction Debate. You can read the case for extinction here and compare it to the case against extinction here.
Not a black and white matter at all, is it? No wonder passionate proponents of proper grammar – editors, writers, and teachers – are using the media to raise public awareness and champion their cause. Next thing we know, California’s English majors will propose drafting a proposition and bringing it to a vote.
But even if the Serial Comma Debate cools, grammar will still be the spotlight, at least in the grammatically conscious midwest. The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s biggest newspaper, used a substantial amount of ink on Sunday. An article touted the services of Dr. Grammar, aka Linda Adkins, a mild-mannered University of Northern Iowa (UNI) writing instructor. (If “UNI” rings a bell, their Panther basketball team took down Kansas during March Madness, 2010. Not that I’m bragging or anything.)
In real life, Adkins teaches college writing and research at UNI. But in the virtual world, Dr. Grammar, diagnoses and treats grammar gaffes at the Dr. Grammar website, www.drgrammar.org. If your niggling grammar issue keeps you awake at night, you can click the “ask a question” link on the home page and submit your query to Dr. Grammar.
Now that concept is a media attention grabber guaranteed to trip the trigger of every red-blooded language lover in the US of A. This could become a clarion call, a rallying cry, the dawn of a new era of well-spoken life in our land.
Grammar geeks, unite! The time for well-spoken speech has arrived.
