Culture

[The Angry Grammarian] Terror on the web

Freedom’s Watch’s bad grammar

Jeffrey Barg

Here at Angry Grammarian Industries Inc., we shy away from calling out bad grammar on signs, in print, etc. It’s too easy, and seems kinda cheap and juvenile.

But sometimes right-wing idiot assholes call for desperate measures.

Freedom’s Watch is a shadowy Swift Boat-y coalition of the shilling running $15 million worth of pro-war ads around the country “to fight the efforts of anti-victory groups.” Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer is a founding board member, and donors include Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Almost as offensive as the videos of crippled vets just dying to go back to Iraq and fight for even more freedom is the atrocious grammar plaguing the site ([sic] the lot of it):

“Laura Youngblood lost 2 family members to al Qaeda terrorists, first her uncle Henry a New York City fireman who lost his life on 9/11, and than her husband Travis died fighting for our freedom in Iraq.”

“Vicki Strong lost her son Marine Sgt. Jesse Strong, in Iraq fighting for our freedom. Listen to why Vicki believes Victory is America’s only choice.”

With grammar like that, it’s like the terrorists have already ... oh, never mind.

Carolina out of her mind

Speaking of way-too-easy shots, poor Miss South Carolina Teen USA. She’s been ridiculed these last two weeks for her unintelligible answer to a pageant question about the fifth of Americans who can’t place the U.S. on a map.

“I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as,” she responded in part, “our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.”

Her Hemingwayesque run-on was indeed pretty funny—a lot funnier than For Whom the Bell Tolls, anyway—but the webwide crucifixion has been just mean-spirited. The YouTube comments include such refined prose as, “HA dum bitch,” “she’s really beautiul, but she’s blonde wot can u ask?” and “so why do they boder asking them stupid f--king questions like howcome a fifth of us citizen can’t point their country on a map?”

Unlike the Freedom’s Watchers, at least when Carolina stumbled, no countries crumbled.

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