Everyone Loves a Boston Girl

Anyone who knows me, knows I have an obsession with grammar. I’m not totally obnoxious about it, I just like it a lot (as I frantically re-read all of my posts to make sure I have no major errors). I don’t really understand why our schools don’t teach it much anymore, and why our society is so careless when it comes to the English language.

A woman was on Oprah last week claiming that Oprah made a serious grammatical error on one of her shows. Do you remember Oprah and Gayle’s Big Adventure? It was a whole week of Oprah and Gayle road tripping across the country. Anyway, this lady wrote a letter and then came on the show claiming that the title of their road trip week was incorrect and it should have been “Oprah‘s and Gayle’s Big Adventure” She actually said, “Everyone who has an ounce of grammar in them knows…It is so tacky.” I was shocked when I heard this. I was 100% sure that Oprah’s name did not need the possessive until this lady started blabbing on about it. Had everything I’d ever been taught gone right through my head? This can’t be right! But this woman was so confident in herself and surely they wouldn’t have had her on the show if she was wrong.

Turns out the woman was incorrect! What humiliation. She basically told Oprah and all of her writers, editors, and copyeditors that they were tacky and dumb. She got invited to be on the show just so they could prove her wrong. I almost felt bad for her. But not really, she should have done her research before appearing before I don’t know how many millions of people on Oprah. Anyway, I felt better about myself, knowing that maybe I really did learn something from elementary school to graduate school.

If you’re as grammar obsessed as I am, definitely check out the books by Bill Walsh (Lapsing into a Comma and The Elephants of Style). Love ‘em.

My most hated error? When people spell grammar, grammer. Ugh.

“Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power.” -Joan Didion