Monday, January 21, 2008

Monday, January 21, 2008

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/01/gosmonster_21.html

Not only yours but every one of the other board members' unanimous rubberstamps need their individual explanation for approving this contract without demur when it came before them.

“Every” is singular, stoopid.

Not only yours but every one of the other board members' unanimous rubberstamps needs its individual explanation for approving this contract without demur when it came before them.


Logic dictates that the basis of the "performance" money that Ms. Elia extracts from the taxpayers comes from the teachers', not Ms. Elia's performance, and that thus any "performance" money should go to the teachers, not to Ms. Elia, whose already bloated pay package disgraces the board's sense of fairness and proportion.

You need a comma after “Elia’s”.

Ms. Elia recently augmented teachers' work load by imposing an extra class on them to solve her budget problems without the board's discussing this imposition on teachers or without the teachers having a chance to comment on the move.

Possessive before gerund! Possessive before gerund! Possessive before gerund! You crucify everyone else who does this, Vinegartits.


A parallel comment from the teachers for your outpouring of money in Ms. Elia's contract tete-a-tete between you and her might elicit adjectives "unscrupulous" or "profligate" or "contemptuous" of taxpayers, teachers, students, and the rest of the school family, whose contracts don't get the cozy attention a school board member lavished on colluding with the superintendent to bloat the superintendent's pay package to the point that the Tribune's editorial page found it necessary to remark upon even though the editorial editor, Ms. Goudreau, is a friend of Ms. Elia and a usually reliable flatterer of the superintendent.

A 97-word sentence? Well done!

Le Matus Wrestles with Commas

Here http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/01/skip-to-main-skip-to-sidebar.html Lee writes:

>In an initial interview, McNeil said he couldn't remember the names of any classes or instructors, or whether he wrote a master's thesis.

The comma after “instructors” is redundant. It splits compound direct-object noun clauses of “said”: “said [that] he couldn’t remember…” or “whether he wrote…”<

The noun clauses are not the object of “said”, you dumb bint. So McNeil said whether he wrote a master’s thesis? Rubbish. He couldn’t remember the names, and he couldn’t remember whether he wrote a thesis.

“The names of any classes” and “whether he wrote a master’s thesis” make a compound object of “could not remember”. Your explanation is as wrong as the comma.

Lee's subject-verb agreement grammar felony in "Pulitzer Misfires: Inducts Tash"

From Pulitzer Misfires: Inducts Tash here at http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2007/12/skip-to-main-skip-to-sidebar.html

Mr. Tash's wife is an English teacher whom he could have consulted to correct his literacy problems. But men of Tash's ilk think us wimmenfolk are for childbearing, slopping the hogs, and holding up a mirror to them to reflect them twice their size.


This is a common error, although I wouldn't expect it from an English teacher with experience of 28 years. Lee should know that "us wimmenfolk" is the subject of the verb "are", not the object of "think". Lee, why don't you consult Mrs Tash to correct your own literacy problems?

In case you're too stupid to work it out, here is the amended version.

But men of Tash's ilk think we wimmenfolk are for childbearing, slopping the hogs, and holding up a mirror to them to reflect them twice their size.

Let me know if you need me to spell it out, Vinegartits.