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The Grammar Police

Aug 31, 2015

Have the Grammar Police fallen asleep at the wheel?  Remember being in school and getting your paper back with red marks all over the place because you wrote incorrectly? An 'X' through this word...or a 'slash' through this phrase with a circle around it; and sometimes it wasn't in english class. 

Or, how about when grandma used to correct the way you said something?

Child:  'Me and Joey are gonna go to the park.'  
Grandma:  'It's Joey and I are going to the park' (emphasizing the '-ing' sound).

Where has that gone?

In the voiceover business, grammar is very important.  A piece of copy riddled with mispellings and inconsistent grammar can leave a voice talent scratching his head and making some pretty funny faces; and only increases the amount of time spent in the studio.  Grammar indicates where the 'pauses' are and lets the voice actor know if they're asking a question or not.

Spelling and grammar have both suffered a major setback in the last 20-30 years; thanks to the advent of the cell phone (with text messaging capability); remember having to press the #7 4-times, in order to get the letter 'S' to appear?  And if you're in a rush(?) Forget about it.  How do you think all those crazy abbreivations came to be (ur, idk, omw, omg, lol...among others)?  Today, those abbreviations are the norm and we've become so complacent that no one ever would attempt to correct the person who wrote it.  Spelling is another issue; or, should I say WAS an issue- thanks to auto-correct.

Through all the advances in technology- grammar still suffers; because auto-correct doesn't place punctuation marks where they need to be; at least, not yet anyway.  It's important to use spelling and grammar, to best articulate our thoughts and feelings to the rest of the world. 

by Rich Brennan