Grammar Nazi
From Encyclopedia Dramatica
The standard response of the functionally illiterate when taken to task for their sins against the mother tongue is to label the offending party a grammar Nazi.
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[edit] I Dream of Genitives
As a young boy, Adolf Hitler had a dream: a dream of a world free of the stain of dangling participles and the mongrel menace of misplaced modifiers. It was a good dream...
[edit] Definition
The standard response of the functionally illiterate when taken to task for their sins against the mother tongue is to label the offending party a grammar Nazi. While the label is certainly an apt one, it is rarely, if ever effective in its intended role as a sort of mini-invocation of Godwin's Law, because true grammar Nazis, like their Teutonic forebears, have absolutely no qualms about their dedication to their fascist cause and their obsession with purity and order. "If the proper use of 'who' and 'whom' makes me a Nazi," thinks the grammar Nazi, "then it is a fair price to pay for the cause—and if a few half-assed constructions and poorly structured interrogatives need to die in the gas chambers for that same cause, then so be it, for it is a good cause."
Ironically enough, the epithet is all too often rendered "grammer Nazi" by its oblivious user, further fueling the fires of the devotee of linguistic purity so labelled.
[edit] The Grammar Nazi Flamewar
Grammar Nazis are prone to a curious form of geek cat fighting wherein they try to outdo one another by finding and correcting increasingly more obscure errors in each other's comments. Whoever identifies the final and most obscure error (preferably the one that requires a consultation with a resident linguist at Cambridge to understand) wins, and evidently has the bigger e-penis. Should you ever encounter a grammar Nazi flame war, it is highly recommended that you do not attempt to drive or operate heavy machinery for several hours afterwards as there is no experience on earth quite as mind-crushingly boring, except perhaps two anime fangirl Grammar Nazis debating the fine points of Japanese grammar.
[edit] As a Drama-Generating Technique
The tendency towards Grammar Nazism can be exploited as a drama-generating technique in several ways:
[edit] The Wild Hunt
After a particularly pretentious Grammar Nazi (such as Hardvice) has posted something entirely tl;dr, a simple comment that states "grammatical errors: 5" will induce abject hysteria as the author attempts to locate and justify the alleged errors. This will invariably bring the author's Grammar Nazi friends and enemies into the fracas, and many long hours will be spent on overly grandiloquent name-calling and heated arguments about what's merely a non-standard but acceptable usage and what's just fucking wrong. Eventually, at least two of the Nazis will declare an e-Jihad, and unfriending drama will ensue over the highly contentious split infinitive question, followed by each side signing the other up for bestiality porn newsletters to which each will later masturbate in secret.
[edit] The Grammar Trap
Another variant requires the trolling party to lay a grammatical trap, so to speak, by intentionally raping the language and lying in wait for the Nazis to spring. The troll then responds with either the image macro above, or perhaps a Fifty Hitler Post combining marqueed Hitlers with marqueed text to the effect of "LOL, GRAMMER NAZI!!!!" Naturally, this is most effective in communities of, say, Holocaust survivors, or alternately the overly sensitive (such as anything with "liberal", "conservative", or "feminism" in the name).
[edit] The Grammar Smackdown
Simple Grammar Nazism is rarely enough to cause the terminally stupid much stress; however, correcting the entire post using strike-through tags and red font tags and then assigning it a big fat F will almost invariably cause the victim to do just about everything short of posting scans of their grade school report cards to prove that they are not in fact retarded. Since the subsequent comments will without exception contain new errors to correct, the troll can keep this one up indefinitely.
For extra credit, you can print the original post, make all the marks using a red pen, write "Please see me after class" or "Unacceptable" near the grade in loopy, teacheresque handwriting, and scan the whole thing in as an image.
The HTML markup required for the Smackdown is:
<del>grammer</del> <ins>grammar</ins>
grammer grammar
WORTH THE EFFORT
[edit] Notes
- Grammar Nazism is not to be confused with its egalitarian cousin, Grammar Socialism, in which everyone is free to yiff the English language until all of the punctuation and caps get jumbled and eventually fall out. (See: AOL speak.)
- This article automatically loses, according to Godwin's Law.
- Grammar Nazis have forgotten that the English language takes a bit of a breather on teh internets.
- Grammar Nazism was used to great effect in the exquisite movie Secretary, whose storyline revolves around Maggie Gyllenhaal and an S&M relationship with her employer, James Spader, who punishes her quite severely for spelling errors.
- the grammar nazi roams Youthink
[edit] Historical Linguistics
Giving murky and unwholesome depth to the phrase "grammar nazi" are the actual origins of many of the grammatical conventions they wield as "law." Many of them were invented by various, self-appointed grammarians of the 18th century who decided certain things were mistakes because of arbitrary parallels to Latin, a more "perfect" language, or just plain old delusions of grandeur. From a linguistic and historical standpoint, these "mistakes" are completely artificial, having very little to do with how language is actually understood by normal people and having everything to do with egocentric control freaks trying to systemize the English language, which is nigh-on impossible because English is a dirty, sloppy, schizophrenic whore of a language. The very label "grammar Nazi," implying that there is even such a thing as a legitimate, totalitarian standard for English, is antithetical. When it is an instance where someone proudly proclaims their identity as a "grammar Nazi," it can be easily interpreted to mean that the individual is ignorant of the English language's history, is a parrot of gradeschool textbooks, and has very little claim on intellectual superiority.
[edit] Common Grammatical Errors
- Doctor Whom is not Doctor Who.
- the ones in My Immortal by Tara Gilesbie. [1]
[edit] Grammar Communities
- grammarpolice
- grammar_mavens
- grammar_whores
- grammar_nazis - Now famous for the furry response to grammar: "grammer_nazi's comprises more than 700 members?"
[edit] See Also
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Grammar Nazi is part of a series on Language & Communication. |
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