Lee's worst I've seen to date.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/06/erwins-struggle-turns-to-the-great.html

Come on. Had you been drinking when you wrote and punctuated this, or did you let Elia edit it?

last five years, semicolon first-class payment

people in the grounds department's faking it is “people” that is possessive, if anything over the lawn workers possessive before gerund driving his school truck

ROSSAC bunker, the the sloppy proofreading board feels secure inpursuing and again its japes and skullduggeries.

You know opponents have run out of ammuntition spelling and missing conjunction they move to the "He's crazy" stage.

They carry the rumor but will be willing to turn on a dime if the power brokers say, "Wait! We have a new read on that chrous spelling about Erwin's being crazy."
"What is it?" yodel the ninnies' chorus. "chorus" is singular – “yodels”
"The new rumor is he's catatonic. comma" says the ROSSAC town crier. "Can you say'catatonic 'catatonic'? sloppy" says he.
"Yes, but we can't spell it close quotation marks here chrouses again? Herd Mentality," all with eary early childhooders can spell this childhood or home-ec degrees.

Tom Gonzalez hires an outside investigator--Glitzen & Associates-- to grill a bevy of school suspected miscreants but then suspends Glitzen's activities when Gitzen's spelling findings replicates subject-verb disagreement Erwin's complaints.

Le Gonzalez has held his sinecure as board attorney for 37 years, secured by venerable good-ol-boy wink-wink job-getting protocols, the only kind that count "kind" is singular – this is a common error in the Tampa Bay Area.

You are in good hands when you are in those of Thomas Gonzalez, Esquire, taxpayer-funded mouthpiece full stop He even brags of having an almost 100 percent rate of screwing workers for bosses in his practice.

If the opponent is proletarit spelling, Le Gonzalez's motto is,"Drive the impoverished creep out of town on a rail. close quotation marks

Gonzalez routinely villifies spellingand discriminates against me because I am poor and downtroden spelling.

Le Tom burns the midnight oil looking up precedents to impress jejune outback judges so as to beat up on poor workers for rich industrialists and orange-grove mutimillionnaires spelling.

and chant, "Double, double, toil and trouble" full stopThen Dr. Lamb throws eye of newt and toenail of a cat into the change-into-a-fiend broth boiling on the lectern on a Buntzs burner, Bunsen burner – Google “Buntzs burner” to find the only use on the internet lifted from the Hillsborough High chemistry lab.

passes it to Susan Valdes, who passes it to all other members of the board; don’t use semi-colon here whose collective touch will fortify and transform the mixture into bat's broth imbued with powers to make the person who imbibes it impeccably evil.

Finally, the last hand to touch the holy cup of the the sloppy unholy board initiation broth passes it to the newly elected inductee and says in a spooky voice that ricochets off the board-room walls, "Bottoms up" in the name of Beelzebub." work on those quotation marks

is then ready to go to work screwing over the citizens, teachers, and children of Hillsborough County whilst support ing vile machinations and the board's going along with her. i.e. nope making the teachers give up their class

Oh, yes. Now I recall. You must pick up on this thread next full stop Steady now.

Vinegartits is getting busted!

Have a look at the comments at http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/05/superintendent-round-up.html

Some poor bugger by the name of Paul Barnard is taking Lee to task over some document that she says she never received from Tom Gonzalez.

But have a look at the post at http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/05/gosmonster.html

>IN CIRCUIT COURT OF THE THIRTEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUITEN AND FOR HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA

CIVIL DIVISION
DEBRA SATCHEL,Plaintiff,Case No.: 8-06714v. Division: J

SCHOOL BOARD OF RILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, EARL LENNARD in his official and individual capacity, LINDA KIPLEY in her official and individual capacity, and

DOE(S) 1-37,Defendants.______________________________________________________/

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME

THIS CAUSE came before the Court on the Defendants’ Motion for Extension of Time to respond to the Plaintiff’s Amended Verified Complaint for Damages. Having reviewed the Motion, it is hereby:

ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Motion is GRANTED. The Defendants shall have up to and including Tuesday, May 6, 2008, to respond to the Plaintiff’s Amended Verified Complaint for Damages.

DONE AND ORDERED in Chambers at Hillsborough County, Florida on this th day of April, 2008.

JAMES D. ARNOLD
CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE
Copies to: ORIGINAI.SIGNED
Thomas M. Gonzalez, Esq.
Debra Satchel, Pro Se
JAMES 0. ARNOLD
CIRCUIrJUDGE

IN CIRCUIT COURT OF THE THIRTEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT FOR COUNTY, FLORIDA CIVIL DIVISION;

DEBRA SATCHEL, Plaintiff,Case No.: 8-06714;Division: SCHOOL BOARD OF COUNTY, EARL LENNARD in his official and individual capacity, LINDA KIPLEY in her official and individual capacity, and James Arnold, the circuit court judge before whom the referenced case is pending.


LAW OFFICESHARRISON C. THOMPSON, JR (1925- 1994)

WILLIAM C. SIZEMORE (1945 - 2004)
LUIS A. CABASSA
*JAMES M. CRAIG *
JENNIFER N- FACOION
THOMAS M- GONZALEZ
THOMPSON, SIZEMORE, GONZALEZ & HEARING
PROFESSIONAL ASSOC[ATIONONE TAMPA CITY CENTER
201 N- FRANKLIN STREET, SUITE
1800POST OFFICE BOX 639TAMPA, FLORIDA 33601(813) 273-0050FAX NO- (813) 273-0072GREGORY A- HEARI NCMAROUIS W. HEILIGERIN C. JACKSON*KEVIN 0. JOHNSON *GRETCHEN M. LEHMANLARA J PEPPAROCAREN R. SKVERSXYDONNA V. SMITHCHARLES J. THOMASJ EN N I FER L. WATSON

Lee Drury DeCesare15316 Gulf BoulevardUnit 802Madeira Beach, Florida 33708

Dear Ms. De Cesare:

It has come to my attention that you have published the following statement:“Teacher who dared file 14-count conspiracy complaint against County, 2 named and 37 unnamed-Doe defendants has moved for default judgment on all claims.”

“The School Board had 10 days over the usual 20 to answer the complaint. The School Board failed to do so.”

You added to the just quoted assertion the following:“I think Tom Gonzalez must have missed the deadline for filing response to this case. That will give me another reason to ask for his firing, lee”

Finally, a posting on your blog over the name “David” but identified as having been authored by “Anonymous,” accuses me of having “failed” in my responsibility to respond to the lawsuit.

I enclose herein a copy of the order entered by Judge James Arnold, the circuit court judge before whom the referenced case is pending. Although I believe the order to be self-explanatory, I note that on April 28, 2008, Judge Arnold allowed the School Board and the individual defendants additional time within which to respond to Ms. Satchel’s complaint. Therefore, neither the School Board nor either of the other defendant -i required to file a response to the suit until Tuesday, May 6, 2008. You could hay ascertained this fact by checking the court file. You obviously chose not to do so. You therefore have published several false and defamatory statements about me. I suggest you correct them.

Very truly yours,

Tom Gonzalez

Enclosure: Order Granting Extension of Time<

Lee has actually scanned this court order and included it along with Tom Gonzalez's letter. She says that she never received it.

Pure bullshit. Plus, she's too stupid to remember that she has received it, scanned it and posted it.

What I think is funny is that all the other sycophants that post inane comments to her blog are too stupid to read her posts properly. They love it when there's a picture of a fat cat that Lee says looks like Elia and they all laugh, but none of them can sort through facts.

Good luck, Paul Barnard. I'm surprised that Vinegartits is even posting your comments. She stopped posting mine. Although she encourages everone to stand up and be heard, she hates it when someone stands up to her. Vinegartits will censor you sooner or later, even though "this is America!". If you ever find this blog, keep me posted.

I might include a few words here, just in case anyone's Googling. Mayby they'll find their way here.

casting room couch Paul Barnard Paul Bernard

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com

Subject / verb agreement hypocrisy

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/05/need-job-listen-up.html

From Vinegartits's keyboard comes this:
>3. If you can make your subjects and verbs agree and have the slightest knowledge of where to put commas, give up now or disguise these skills. Those accomplishments will turn the superintendent off to your getting the job since La Elia has no idea about such useless information as the accoutrements of literacy in the education racket.<

And then this a few sentences later:
>Call for more information: 810-Mr. Linda Kipley. Or leave your application in a pumpkin on the northeast side of the parking lot, whose mouth slot contain the tear-off slogan “Property of Mr. Linda Kipley, now on a glide track to the superintendency, at which point he will shuck his old wife, La Linda, for a new model from amongst the hordes of young women school-board stenos with a favorable hip-to-waist ratio who appeal to guys who dump the faithful wife who has maneuvered their success in the education racket into high gear in Hillsborough County, Florida.<

Make your own subjects match your own verbs, bimbo. Close your quotation marks, too.

Here's a comment on this blog from one Thomas Vaughan:

>Lee

I would like to tell the story of my evaluation, my attempt to get my grievance to it heard and the so called investigation of another complaint done by Professional Standards.

May I do this on your blog?

I feel my reputation has been smeared limp passive verb and my career put in jeopardy because of one person's personal animosity toward me.

I am prepared for the criticism that may be directed at me by your readers. Good! I have made my share of mistakes. I feel I have been treated unfairly and no one will listen. The CTA has limited power. I have discovered that they can only concern itself Ewww! with specific violations of the contract, that selective documentation of a teachers performance done only to call into question his professional skills is permitted. Outright false statements can be allowed to stand. Blatant errors of interpretation of the evaluation criteria cant be challenged, even though they make it appear as though I am inconsistent in my treatment of minorities. I deeply resent that implication.

I asked my principal for feedback, she promised comma splice - a felony right Lee?to give it but failed do so. I believe this was deliberate. She accepted my lesson plans for 12 weeks and despite my specific request for feedback on them said nothing until she used them to hammer me on the evaluation. She did however mark my down for turning several of them in a day late. The whole process was a set up from day one.

I am frustrated and discouraged. I feel my employer of 14 years has let me down.

The school district has closed ranks around one of its own and I have been left out to dry. I am 100% certain that I will get the same treatment next year. Another poor evaluation and I will probably lose my job. I have had excellent evaluations from my previous supervisors. My last evaluation was 127 points and I qualified for MAP money. This year it was 97 points. Nothing about my performance changed. The only thing that changed was my supervisors decision to force me out because she doesn't like me.

I have tried to go through the proper channels to seek redress but have been stymied at every turn. I want my good name back. I will no longer hide anonymously behind my keyboard. I feel I am right and am no longer afraid.

Thomas Vaughan<

This fellow can't use an apostrophe to save himself, among other things. Let's see what Lee has to say about it. Probably nothing - she should encourage him to go for a board job with writing skills like that.

Colons (again) and parallel construction.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/05/superintendent-round-up.html


>Meeting with Gorham: I think he is promising and would be a good substitute for Kurdell. Almost anyone not a rubberstamp is an acceptable substitute. He is sophisticated about the district's problems. He has a teacher wife, which explains that fact to me. He says he can face down Elia. That would be novel and welcome. He is fluent about the problems of the schools, is nice looking, and a good listener. I gave him a hundred bucks. There is another guy in the race now. We must look at him too. lee<

Independent clause should predede a colon.

Parrallel construction dictates " ... and is a good listener".

Colons

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/05/fatty-arbuckle-and-other-bad-role.html

>And speaking of bellies: the beer belly is nothing but fat. The beer belly will disappear if the person loses weight.<

Vinegartits usually maintains that a complete sentence precedes a colon.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/05/mr-linda-kipley-gets-job-unfairly.html

>She is also entitled to file charges under the American disabilities act.<

Capitalise the name of the act.


>I was able to examine four of the remaining candidates’ application for the job. <

The candidates submitted one application?

>It took a jury to rule that the board ignored Mr. Erwin’s warnings about theft, bid rigging, and shoddy construction of schools that the board and administration wanted to ignore and punish Mr. Erwin for pointing out.<

The board wanted to punish Mr. Erwin for pointing out his warnings? Idiot.

>He has little if any accounting experience (sales rep/accounting) doesn't sound like any deep accounting decorates his resume. <
This is nonsensical. Run on sentence or just crap?


>I have told Ms. Salem that if the board has turned her down for this job and picked the much-less-qualified husband of an administrator, <

Don't hyphenate the adverb in expressions like this.


>I look foreward to receiving these materials in a timely manner.<
[shudder]

Parentheses

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/05/superintendent-round-up.html

>My read is that a person with ability threatens the board C students, so Elia, who has to struggle with grammar and punctuation and who probably flattered the imminently susceptible board members to a faretheewell from her in-house spot got the job.<

Does Elia fail to enclose parenthetic expressions between commas as Vinegartits does here (Strunk & White Rule 3) or is this Vinegartits's personal struggle with punctuation?

Compound verbs

http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/05/david-brooks-misquotes-mccarthy-and.html

>If elected, she’ll have the power to take the Hobbesian struggle she perceives, and turn it into remorseless reality.
The comma after “perceives” splits a compound verb: “perceives” and “turn.”<

Parrallel construction might help. What Brooks meant to write was "... she'll have the power to take the struggle she perceives and to turn it into ...".

She'll have the power ... to turn it ino a reality.

"She perceives" is an adjectival clause modifying "struggle".

Put it this way - if "perceives" and "turn" were a compound verb, they would be the same in number, wouldn't they? Is "turn" even finite? What is its subject?

No, "to take" and "turn" are infinitives that qualify "power". The comma is incorrect, but not for the listed Vinegartitted reasons.

One day she'll think things through and check her grammar primer before posting her crap.

Singular subject, singular verb.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/04/anonymous-has-left-new-comment-on-your.html

>Not one of the board members that adorn the board semi-circle have the nerve to rein in Elia in arrogance of that sort. <
Vinegartits requires a singular verb. Not one ... has the nerve.

There's another one of these in her recent posts, but at the time I couldn't be bothered. If I see it again, I'll post it here.

>he had to defend himself against cramping citizens' free-speech rights who come before the board;<
The rights didn't come before the board, airhead.

>and that he knew it and was just counting on the citizen's ignorance to make his hints of a law suit scare them into silence.<
Teacher either can't match her pronouns with their antecedents or can't use an apostrophe. Probably both?


>I also got the fun of tearing up Gonzalez's grammar, punctuation, and writing style. That's my specialty and an especially apposite one with Gonzalez since he has an undergraduate literature degree and since lawyers are supposed to be able to write.<

As are ex-English teachers and university professors, Vinegartits.

Shoddy.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/04/ms.html

>If Le Gonzalez Esquire does any of the following more serious infractions than the four listed above and turned down as too flimsy for punishment by the Florida Bar, expect to get another complaint if Mr Gonzalez descends to the following barbarisms:<

If Vinegartits writes poorly, she should expect a mouthful if Vinegartits writes poorly.

>listed above and turned down as too flimsy for punishment by the Florida Bar<
Flabby passive voice.

>Very, very respectfully yours<
Redundant adverb.

Bad day for grammar and punctuation

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-spent-another-several-hours-with.html



>Erwin meanwhile is documenting that a lot of the schools are built on bad land, water being a particular problem. <



Possessive before your stupid gerunds, Vinegertits.



Erwin meanwhile is documenting that a lot of the schools are built on bad land, water's being a particular problem.



>I talked to Sam shortly before he died to find out about a guy whom ROSSAC had crucified, who had won his case, but then saw ROSSAC not restore him to his job but put him to teaching prisoners.<



"Who had won his case" is restrictive: no comma.





>That’s the kind of background that the Hillsborough County School Board counts as superintendent material, turning down Columbia PH.D.s with wide experience, considerable publishing, and fluent in three languages. <



With ... fluent in three languages? No. Parallel construction dictates "and fluency in three languages".



>The board covered its ass in a sham “nation-wide” search and billed the taxpayers $35,000 to cover their dishonest tracks. Entering ROSSAC just infects people.<



The board starts off singular and ends up plural. Covers its dishonest tracks. "Just" is a superfluous valley girl adverb against which Strunk &White inveighs. Innit, Vinegartits?



>In fact Ms. Elia created and the board signed off on a boutique job for him the last few months of his employment so that he could dither in comfort until he decided to exit. <



Do you know the truth? State it. Strunk & White suggests you do. Ditch this crap.



>He mistook the difference between “your” and “you’re” to give you some idea of his level of linguistic sophistication.<



No, he didn't. But it does. Comma needed.

Colons, colons everwhere!

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/04/polly-pile-into-board-meeting-sign-up.html



>Polly, in regard to your message below: pile into the board meeting, sign up to speak, go to the mike when La Belle Dame sans Merci Falliera recognizes you, and then squawk.<

As Vinegartits often writes, a complete sentence should always precede a colon.



Here is yet another example of her lack of attention to detail. Slack, slack, slack. God forbid anyone puts a comma out of place.

An early classic

This is beautiful. It's one of Lee's earliest blog entries, and it provides a link to her grammargrinch blog.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2006/06/despicable-performances-by-public.html

>http://www.%20grammargrinch.blogspot.com/This blog tears into the grammar-punctuation-style and sometimes political errors of the NYTimes. Washington Post, Boston Globe, and LA Times. I don't pick on the little papers--just the big, important ones and the big, important columnists. Oddly enough, the site has a steady stream of hits from the people who work at these papers. They do want to write well, and most of them do not have training in grammar and punctuation and want to learn those skills.<

Even back then Vinegartits was picking on the grammar and punctuation of others while making clangers herself. Use commas to separate items in a list rather than periods, and proofread your work if you are to throw stones at others from your glass house.

Basic stuff

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/04/some-have-asked-about-getting-data-on.html

Here are some more Vinegartits classics:

>Steve Heggarty is the head person (He replaced Marc Hart when the administration-board booted the latter out for alleged alcoholism but really to cover up the affair with La Falliero) to keep her reputation spotless and to keep the public from knowing the board and administration tolerate and even cultivate hanky panky on the job.<

Remove the parenthesis:

Steve Heggarty is the head person to keep her reputation spotless and to keep the public from knowing the board and administration tolerate and even cultivate hanky panky on the job.

Twit.

>Heggarty got the head job not because he was qualified (he lacked the experience factor) but because he had covered the schools for the SPT and had played kissy poo with the administration and wrote puff pieces.<

Wordy. Edit: He lacked experience.

>Steve is not on the ball. His assistant, Linda Cobbe (who had also applied of the job) is.<

There is no excuse for this missing comma.

>He is good for nothing but rubberstamping Elia's ukases and waddling around asking board typists to send a letter from him on board stationary asking Mayor Iorio to abate his condo water bill.<

Try "e for envelope, a for at a standstill". It might help you remember. It works for my eight-year-old.

>The board has a month from the day of filing to respond, so this production is due soon to be found on this site if I can lay hold of it.<

Here, so means therefore. Vinegartits refuses to punctuate this one correctly despite Strunk & White's advice.

>What am I reading? The Leatherstocking tales, of course: I missed Fenimore Cooper when I was young; so I am reading him when I am old and in love with Natty Bumpo aka Hawkeye, Deerslayer, or Leatherstockings.<

Hang on! She's got it! Elsewhere she reckons I am making up grammar rules on this one. Maybe it's a typo, but if she has seen the error of her ways, then she is welcome for my help.

>He's even more attractive because he rejects all liasons with women--his bride, he avows, being the forest.<

Possessive before gerund, Vinegartits. Or has she finally worked out that they are participles?

Fix your own mistakes first.

http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-civility-of-whom-dead.html

Vinegartits writes this:

Parallelism: use "that...that" or use nothing. Don't use one that to begin a noun clause an omit before the other noun clause.

Maybe she's learned something from my post two before this one of March 25!

Attention to detail ... not!

http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/03/brooks-messes-up-in-politics-and.html

Honestly. A picture speaks a thousand words (with appropriate punctuation and proofreading).

Lee posts her garbled text and blames the text recognition program. What gets the blame for chunks of text shoved rudely in the middle of a word? I bet that one of the 150 copy editors at the New York Times would have picked up this one.

Vinegartits's hypocritical attitude towards error-free publishing amazes me.

Parellel construction

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/03/var-yahoo-shortcuts-yahoo_24.html

Lee writes:

>Hooper, You are showing that you not only go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but you demonstrate in this banal question above that you also lack subtlety of thought. <

Strunk & White write:

Correlative expressions (both, and; not, but; not only, but also; either, or; first, second, third; and the like) should be followed by the same grammatical construction.

A time not for words but action. [Incorrect]
A time not for words but for action. [Correct]


Edit:

Hooper, you are showing that you not only go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but also demonstrate in this banal question above that you lack subtlety of thought.

or

Hooper, you are not only showing that you go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but also demonstrating in this banal question above that you lack subtlety of thought.

The real problem is that this rot is tautologous.

>You are showing that you ... demonstrate in this banal question ...<

Further edit:

Hooper, you are showing not only that you go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but also in this banal question above that you lack subtlety of thought.

This attitude says it all.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/03/below-is-current-status-of-my-ethics.html

Lee said she had made her last post on her Casting Room Couch blog, yet this one appears. It contains this statement.


>Below is the current status of my ethics charge against the board attorney with the Florida Bar Ethics Commission. It's garbled in the PDF transfer mystery, but you can get an idea of what is going on.<


Here is some of the garbled text.


Enelosedis acopyofourlettertoMr. Gonza1ezwhithrquñ
Once you receive Mr. Gonzalez’s response. )VU have 10 days to file a iclnaial if dct if you decide to file a rebuttal, please said a copy to Mr. (ioorala. flc a a’y i a correspondence to me.
Please be advised that as an arm of the Supiune Coat of FiSda, lit FlotiiM investigate allegations of misconduct against attorneys, id wt apçixçris, inpra 1 It
attorney be disciplined. (sic)

But you can get an idea of what is going on? But you can get an idea of what is going on? This bugs me. This sour old cow crucifies anyone who puts a comma out of place, yet she is happy to post this gibberish.

I was going to mention this attitude a while ago when Lee wrote "Commas I can do. Graphics are a mystery." She can't be bothered to learn how to make her site presentable even though she labours over everyone else's possessive-before-gerund felonies.

I read sentences with missing commas easier than I read sentences presented in inch-high overlapping text. I understand "Did you see me swimming the English Channel?" more than I understand "id wt apçixçris".

Yes, I know that Lee didn't write it as such, but neither did its author. But she saw fit to publish it for people to read in its state. She couldn't be bothered learning how to tweak her text recognition tool in the same manner that people can't be bothered learning how to use commas.

I've got news for Vinegartits. Commas might be missing, but you can get an idea of what's going on. Writers might not use possessives before [what she calls] gerunds, but you can get an idea of what's going on.

Lee writes:
>Thank goodness, I am a writer.<

"I am a writer" is one of the "that" clauses with the "that" omitted. Vinegertits has written about this before. Thank goodness that I am a writer.

Edit: Thank goodness I am a writer.

Don't bother changing it, La Vinegartits; we can still get an idea of what's going on. ;)

Lee's difficulty with subject-verb agreement

http://tampabaygrammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/03/maxwell-jealous-of-obama-trashes-commas.html

Lee hashes subject-verb agreement. I've read it's a felony.

>Data enter a person’s ear and comes out the other ear shaped by the back roads, cul-de-sacs, and curlicues of the alembic of that person’s particular psyche. In other words, it comes out biased.<

Lee starts off maintaining that "data" is plural by using the plural verb "enter". She then uses the singular verb "comes", the singular pronoun "it" and the singular verb "comes" again.

She was trying to appear clever by insisting that "data" is plural. It lasted five words.

Osculate my gluteus

http://tampabaygrammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/02/st-pete-times-womens-grammar-and.html

>What century do those geezers and I'm talking about their wheezy old attitudes, not their chronological ages live in?

I regret to report that Ms. Bancroft has fallen into a grammar felony: subject-verb disagreement. “Do” should be “does”: “What century does.” The grammar checker is good on spotting such subject-verb agreement errors.<

The grammar checker, my dear Vinegartits, is poor at spotting them, as are you. You've mentioned spelling and grammar checkers before, but I've never believed that a teacher with experience of 28 years would rely on them. Your comment alarms me. Your comment indicates that you really do slap some text into a Word document and hit "spellcheck", waiting to pounce on the squiggly green underlined bits. I tried it with Ms Bancroft's sentence, and the green line appeared. God forbid.

The subject-verb agreement in "What century do those geezers and I'm talking about their wheezy old attitudes, not their chronological ages live in?" is correct.

Try pumping this one into your grammar checker. What century does those geezers live in?

When the computer doesn't have all those nasty extra words in between, it is able to work out that "What century do those geezers live in?" is correct. You might be able to as well with a little help.

Rearrange the sentence.
Those geezers do live in what century.
Those geezers does live in what century.

See someone intelligent after class.







>I wrote to Slate and asked why in the hell it let this grammar poseur write prescriptive columns when he didn’t know his ass from his elbow. <

Lee once chastised me for using the word "arse" and wrote that she preferred the elegant "gluteus". Either she is using the "ass from elbow" cliche to sound more like a Valley working girl or she is one.

I love this!

This here at http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/02/la-belle-dame-sans-merci-falliero.html both amuses and saddens.

Lee picks and chooses who will be the targets of her vitriolic grammar and punctuation pedantry. She makes no comments about the author's grammar, style and punctuation alternatives although she has condemned others for similar choices. I think Lee is no better than those who cut her off after a three-minute time limit while letting others run over. She rails against their inconsistencies and is just as guilty.

I have corrected the author's comment. Both of you need to see the teacher after class.


Lee

I have been reading our your - shoddy proofreading blog for a year , place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause - Strunk and White Rule 4 and I am certain you would give my Principal principal - no capital for this common noun quite an earful. I doubt this person would understand most of it though.

So if I told you the name of this person, and you sent the blistering missive, where would that leave me? This person is vindictive and mean spirited.

I thank you for taking the time to read my original message and will continue to enjoy your blog. Knowing your scrutiny of grammar and punctuation, please be gentle with me. dangling present participial phrase - The sentence is imperative; therefore, the implied subject is "you". The subject is not knowing the scrutiny. Recast as Knowing your scrutiny of grammar and punctuation, I ask you please to be gentle with me. I would hate to be graded on that.

Thanks



My dear, you should not let little, mean people like your principal cramp your spirit. He or she is nothing but a bully.

Your grammar is perfect; ditto punctuation. If you want to see some bad grammar and punctuation from a guy who holds a high position in the publishing world, go to tampabayareagrammargrinch.blogspot.com and read my analysis of the publisher of the SP Times's pitiful grammar and punctuation. It will give you confidence to think better of your skills. lee

Perfect grammar and punctuation? I think not.

Scholorship

From http://http//grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/02/elias-poison-spreads-throughout-schools.html

>Ms. Elia's bachelor's-degree college in New York state had grammar-and-punctuation errors on its home page when I checked it. This is not a good sign that Ms. Elia's alma mater is a hotbed of scholorship.<

I don't think that anyone (especially a teacher with experience of 28 years) who can't spell "scholarship" ranks fit to judge where is or isn't a satisfactory place to learn.

>The board is just as prostrate before Ms. Elia’s ukases as the teachers were. On the podium, it always seems to me that the board regresses to some age at which the designated adult, Elia, has the power. <

What is "it"? The word has has no antecedent. This is the kind of felony against which Lee rails.


>I'd like to slap those young first- and second-year teachers silly for participating in the punishment of older colleagues by taking the jobs that the principals and department heads removed from teachers such as Bruce for protesting the extra class. They are ingrateful, short-sighted little twits. lee<

Hypocrite. Lee bleats about freedom of speech for everyone and freedom of choice for those wanting an abortion. Don't first- and second-year teachers have the same freedom to make their own choices? What would Lee say to the crazies who say that women having abortions are not grateful for the gift of life or are being short-sigshted for not realising they are snuffing out an entire lifetime? Ingrateful, shortsighted, pro-choice twits? I know who the real twit is.

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.

Lee's double standard for Uni Professor e-mail pal

Vinegartits really is an arse-kisser. She castigates anyone who slips up with a single comma unless they’re her buddies, in which case she leaves them well alone. She complains about cronyism constantly, but she is just as bad as the school board she’s always whinging about when it comes to double standards. Look here at http://tampabaygrammargrinch.blogspot.com/2007/10/back-on-my-day-job-of-grammargrinch.html

The airhead received an e-mail of support from a university professor who complains about students’ writing ability. Lee writes:

>Confirming my suspicions of shoddy oversight of doctoral dissertations came this email from a part-time professor at Nova; he got one of my handouts at Tiger Bay.<

Vinegeartits publishes it without a word about his sentence structure, style or syntax. I can’t be bothered listing all his errors but this beauty from the professor deserves a mention:

>On the upside, the institution does provide writing centers where student’s can go to get help; students rarely take advantage of what is available to them.<

Q. What do a retired English teacher and a university professor have in common?

A. They both use apostrophes to denote plurals!

Idiots.

Tough, Sad and Smart

Tough, Sad and Smart here. http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2007/10/op-ed-columnist-tough-sad-and-smart.html


Lee writes: I taught college English for twenty-eight years. My few male Black students coasted, counting on teacher's passing them despite lack of performance.

Although “passing” is a verbal participle (according to Strunk & White), you will insist it is a gerund. Have the decency to use the apostrophe correctly for more than one teacher: teachers’ passing.

Prissy Press Fautleroy Makes Basic Writing Errors

Prissy Press Fautleroy Makes Basic Writing Errors here.


>When in 1997 Bill Clinton used the line-item veto, with which Congress had just armed him, to cancel $200 million for New York state,

Lee writes: The redundant commas around “with…him’ before cut off a restrictive adverbial prepositional phrase.<


The phrase modifies “veto” and is therefore adjectival, not adverbial. Adjectives modify nouns: Vinegartits mustn't have taught that in her 28 years.

A message from Lee to many. None will correct her.

From Lee’s Casting room couch here :
http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2007/09/lee-drury-de-cesare-forwarded-message.html


Lee writes: Ms. Elia’s record on excellence in education is quite markedly deficient. Her record is more demonstrative of ambitious pursuit of the superintendent position to bloat hers and other administrators’ salaries than to promote excellence in education.

Those possessives are ugly; recasting might help. If Lee is to persist with such ugliness, she must use the possessive adjective “her” rather than “hers”
to bloat hers … salary

You would have to be stupid to write that, wouldn’t you?



These board-superintendent decisions define a system’s policies that strip teachers of input and thus negatively impact any education excellence

I didn’t realise you were capable of such jargon. Use “affect”.



to be achieved by the very people--classroom teachers-- who insure this transcendent goal.

Flabby passive verb.




The board has colluded with Ms. Elia in squelching teacher input at board meetings, for example, by the Chair’s , Dr. Lamb’s, calling teacher applause of a colleague’s comments “out of order” and gaveling teachers down mid-clause when the meager three minutes allowed them for comment is over.

Your unhealthy obsession with possessives before (what you think are) gerunds will result in this rot.





This three-minute limit is especially offensive, given some board members’ wont to ramble on ad infinitum and all board members’ eating up time by flowery comments to each other on the “awards” they have won for their spurious achievements in the education administration bureaucracy’s ersatz prize scams and raffles.

That long-winded past participial phrase is restrictive. Ditch the comma.




One board member, Ms. Edgecombe, a former principal, has labeled teachers rude and discourteous to the board merely for their even daring to question the administration and the board’s policies. Another board member, Ms. Olson, called teachers lazy in a meeting when they protested the extra class imposed on them by Ms. Elia without their input, and the camera showed that Ms. Elia and Ms. Olson even passed notes during the negative comments on teachers' putative laziness.

Why even do you even use those redundant adverbs?





Ms. Elia’s personal professional ethics as seen by me personally are distressingly deficient.

You like passive voice? It makes your writing lack vigour. Any idiot can see that if something were seen by you it would be seen personally and that Ms Elia’s professional ethics would have to be hers personally. Ditch those redundant adverbs, recast in active voice and save words!
“Ms. Elia’s professional ethics that I have seen are distressingly deficient.”





I observed first hand how Ms. Elia and the head of Professional Standards, Linda Kipley, manufactured a case of misusing school emails by a media specialist friend of mine, Bart Birdsall, apparently to accommodate the country-administrator friend of Ms. Elia’s desire to punish Bart because he, as a gay man, protested from his home computer about the shutdown of county library privilege to gays in educational displays. (67 words – bloody hell!)

That (passive voice) phrase doesn’t do what you want it to do, does it? It was the friend’s desire; most of your readers will stumble over that sentence.





The Professional Standards unit as run by Ms. Kipley for Ms. Elia’s outreach of control of school personnel does not so much promote professional standards as it imposes silence and fear of loss of job for those who speak up..
I advise parallel construction (as does Strunk & White). “… does not so much promote professional standards as impose silence and fear …”

EDITOR J. ALFRED PRUFROCK REIFIES

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2007
EDITOR J. ALFRED PRUFROCK REIFIES

Lee writes here at http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2007/09/editor-j-alfred-prufrock-reifies.html:

>What do they think would constitute victory in Iraq, NO COMMA: IT SPLITS A COMPOUND DIRECT OBJECT. and how, precisely, REDUNDANT ADVERB do they intend to achieve it?<


Rubbish. There are two independent clauses.

What do they think would constitute a victory in Iraq
Verb – “do think”
Object of “do think” – what would constitute a victory in Iraq

How, precisely, do they intend to achieve it
Verb – “do intend”
Object of “do intend” – to achieve

And old Vinegartits could tell you that you need a comma to separate two independent clauses.

The "twit" turning point

From Lee's blog, Thursday, July 12, 2007:

"Plea to Oxford Linguistics Faculty:
I had a bone to pick with Dr. Burchfield and discovered that he had gone and died on me. So I kick the can downstream to you guys. You must do something about this twit who heads the American branch of Oxford Dictionary, Jesse Sheidlower. "


In response to one of her diatribes (Dr. Roy Peter Clark of Poynter Institute Takes a Bow here), I wrote:

"Your second explanation about redundant adverbs is just as redundant as the adverbs themselves. Pay attention, you twit."

Her response:

"Call me 'twit' one more time, sugarbritches, and I will cut you out of the loop. A man absent the courage to mount his own blog has no standing to call a woman demeaning names. lee drury de cesare"

Old vinegartits gives it, but can't take it. (I think I need a pet name like "sugarbritches" for Lee as I am now a man with my own blog.)