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When Rupert Murdoch announced last week that he’d purchased The Wall Street Journal, the paper’s copy desk immediately bought out the typesetters’ supply of question marks. Knowing Murdoch, they’re gonna need ’em. Soon all of the WSJ’s headlines will be questions, à la Murdoch’s Fox News. Their credo: Making ridiculous, outlandish statements is no problem as long as you put question marks at the end of them.
From the bottom of the Fox News screen:
“JOHN KERRY: DISASTER FOR THE STOCK MARKET?”
“NATIONAL HEALTHCARE: BREEDING GROUND FOR TERROR?”
“IS SEN. KERRY GUILTY OF FLIP-FLOPPING ON THE ISSUES?”
“WHY IS JESUS SO POPULAR NOW?”
The creators of The Simpsons even got in trouble with their bosses at Fox for running a fake news ticker in one episode, with headlines like “DO DEMOCRATS CAUSE CANCER?” Fox reportedly thought its viewers would think they were real headlines.
The day after the sale announcement, MoveOn.org members handed out mock Wall Street Journals outside Dow Jones headquarters with appropriate headlines: “IS THE LIBERAL MEDIA HELPING TO FUEL TERROR?” “ALL OUT CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ: COULD IT BE A GOOD THING?”
When a simple punctuation mark gets this perverted, what hope can there be for the legit semicolons hoping to elbow their way in?
My friend and I were having a grammar debate. I made an argument, and he asked me to what authoritative text I could attribute the rule. Please recommend a good grammar book with which to settle these disputes.
Okay. The dictionary.
Most of my days are filled with constant queries as to the form of a verb, the existence of a word, the proper term to use. Virtually every question can be answered by the dictionary.
AG’s house dictionary is Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate, 11th edition. If you know someone in college, steal their password so you can access the Oxford English Dictionary online (which is more up-to-date than the 20-volume, $995 print edition).
For more general grammar questions, try Ben Yagoda’s When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It; Patricia O’Conner’s Woe Is I; and for a grammar look that’s just as cheeky as Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves, but more useful and practical, June Casagrande’s Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies. She’s just kidding ... we think. This week in the AG podcast: great songs with terrible grammar. Subscribe free at www.theangrygrammarian.com or contact Jeffrey Barg at [email protected]