Who cares about National Grammar Day? Or is it whom?

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

Who cares about National Grammar Day? Or is it whom?

March 4 is National Grammar Day. According to its sponsor, the Society
for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG, they call themselves, though
between you and me, it's not the sort of acronym to roll trippingly
off the tongue), National Grammar Day is "an imperative . . . . to
speak well, write well, and help others do the same!"

The National Grammar Day website is full of imperatives about correct
punctuation, pronoun use, and dangling participles. In the spirit of
good sportsmanship, it points out an error in the Olympic theme song,
"I believe," which contains the phrase the power of you and I (that's
a common idiom in English, even in Canada, plus it rhymes with fly in
the previous line of the song, but SPOGG would prefer that Olympians
sing you and me). There's even a link to vote for your favorite
Schoolhouse Rock grammar episode (hint: unless you prefer grammar
rules that have nothing to do with the language people actually speak,
don't pick "A Noun is the Name of a Person, Place, or Thing").

The National Grammar Day home page has even got its own grammar song
available for download, though it's of less than Olympic quality, and
the site also boasts a letter of support from former Pres. George W.
Bush, apparently SPOGG's poster child for good grammar, who writes
that "National Grammar Day . . . can help Americans prepare for the
challenges ahead." To be sure, Bush wrote that before the grammar
bubble burst. The growing number of grammarians filing first-time
unemployment claims suggests that the former president was wrong about
this, as he was about most things.

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____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron

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