the grammar guy
entering geekdom, skip if you think it’s silly to care about syntax and suchlike…
what i would say to the grammar guy if i could find the site where i first found his musings:
first off, it’s not waiter, waitress, or waitperson. never a need to use any of that claptrap ever again. just say server! a server is not waiting on you, as in every need, but serving your food & bev!
grammar guy says
It’s common enough in speech: “A friend of mine called me.” “What did they say?” But, although many writers have used it (see examples from Jane Austen), it often sets off alarm bells among the fussier readers of formal writing today.
who need to get over themselves - language changes and this is a reasonable adaptation that is not in any way diluting or dumbing-down the language as those fussyfolk might fear.
on pronouns dude notes:
when saying “Bob gave Terry a memo Bob wrote, and Terry read the memo,” we’d use the nouns Bob, Terry, and memo only once, and let pronouns do the rest: “Bob gave Terry a memo he wrote, and she read it.”
and i say that it’s all context (in the first place what if terry is a he). but what about where we say:
“Bob gave Tom a memo he’d written and Tom read it.” This is fine while it’s the memo bob had written, unless tom forgot writing it and bob was showing it to tom as a reminder. aha? aha!
i’d also needle out of him an opinion on correct use of the em dash and i’d lay into him about my personal pet peeve which i know is kind of dumb, but “exploitive?” no! exploitative. it (and all those like it) just sounds better. you know they do. admit it. (cane pulls me by the neck stage left)
