Many of us have and good time laughing at Word Crimes by Weird Al Yankovich. He certainly does a good job of cataloging word usage that makes people very angry. Heres a list of extremely pointed and also pertinent questions from linguistics PhD Lauren Squires. The more likely one is to be irked by language usage the way Weird Al is, the more likely answering the questions will make one uncomfortable. (My favorite is question #19.) --- 25 Questions for Teaching with Word Crimes 1) What is the difference between spelling and grammar? 2) What is the role of words in grammar? 3) What is the function of dictionaries in society? 4) Who makes dictionaries? Why? How do dictionary makers decide what a word means? 5) What is the difference between language, English, and literacy? How does literacy relate to spelling and/or grammar? 6) Weird Al points out that nouns can be divided into mass nouns (which are typically modified with less) and count nouns (which are typically modified with fewer). Can you think of other sub-categories of nouns (that is, nouns that behave in different ways from other nouns)? 7) When someone says I could care less, do you interpret it as Weird Al says (that they DO care), or do you understand their intention? If you understand their intention, why would it matter which way they say it? Can you think of other examples when what someone says may be ambiguous, but their meaning is clear from context? 8) Who decides what is the right way to say things? 9) Why do you/we trust some people, but not others, to decide what is right? 10) Weird Al discusses the difference between its and its. He says people need to use the right pronoun in deciding when to use one or the other. Are its and its actually different pronouns, or the same pronouns with different functions? (not as easy as it may seem!) 11) What is the difference between a possessive and a contraction? Give more examples of each. 12) What is a participle, and what would it mean for a participle to be dangling? Why do writers sometimes want to avoid dangling participles? 13) What is an Oxford comma? Some professional editors use the Oxford comma, and others do not. Come up with an argument to support each rule. 14) Weird Al claims that B C R and U are words not letters. Do you agree? Can you make an argument that these ARE, indeed, words? 15) Weird Al says you should NEVER write words using numbers (like WORD5). But people DO write words using numbers, sometimes (otherwise Weird Al wouldnt need to tell them not to!). When do you think people might choose to spell words this way? Are there times when it might be appropriate to do so? Are there times when it would be completely inappropriate to do so? Does the spelling affect how the words convey their meaning? 16) Weird Al says its ok to write words using numbers if youre 7 years old (or if your name is Prince…you probably dont get that joke). What do you think is behind his acceptance of spelling this way for children? Do you think 7-year-olds spell this way? 17) Weird Al mentions Proper English. What do you think he means by this term? What does this term mean to you? How do you think you learned the meaning of Proper English? Do you think you speak Proper English all the time? When do you or dont you? 18) Do you use the word whom? (advanced: Do a search using an online corpus for to who versus to whom and see what you find. Is to whom in as widespread usage? If not, should we be worried? Why or why not?) 19) Weird Al makes sentence diagrams! Try to diagram this simple sentence using Weird Als system (which are Reed-Kellogg diagrams): Weird Al hates bad grammar. What do you think the purpose of sentence diagramming is? 20) What IS the difference between good and well? Would you say Im doing good or Im doing well? Why? 21) Weird Al doesnt like people misusing the terms literally and irony. Can you think of words that you and your friends use to mean something different than what other people might mean by them? 22) Weird Al singles out emails and blog posts as places where particular bad grammar resides. What do you think is behind this? Do you think YOUR emails, blog posts, or Facebook posts contain different grammar than your school papers, texts, or spoken conversations? 23) What do you think the function of emoji are in online communication? Do you or your friends use them? Where do they usually go in a message (beginning, middle, end)? How does their position relate to their function? 24) Weird Al seems to think that preschool is where proper grammar education begins. Do you remember learning about grammar in preschool? What are your first memories of learning about grammar? Do you feel satisfied with the amount of formal grammar instruction you have had in school? Why or why not? 25) Weird Al says some pretty mean things about people who dont use proper English. Where do you think his negative attitudes about such people come from? Do you think hes justified in his beliefs? Why or why not? ---
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 04:34:00 +0000