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Grammar Nazis

Sometimes I complain on this blog about grammar Nazis. I had no idea at the time that grammar Nazis might actually be a real phenomenon.

Of course, I’d be dead because my unedited material all too frequently contains multiple run-on sentences. True, I almost always find them later when I reread my posts and then fix them, but in the few hours after such posts “go live” they often sit there, uncorrected. Oh, well, it is blogging, and I don’t have an editor other than myself.

Now watch: Based on this video, everybody’s favorite anti-vaccine apologist who keeps reminding us he is not “anti-vaccine,” Dr. Jay Gordon, will start posting Tweets that castigate me as “despicable” for posting a video that jokes about killing grammar Nazis, even though it’s a stunning parody of the first scene of Inglourious Basterds. Seriously, yesterday Dr. Jay Tweeted his outrage over my use of an old Mitchell and Webb clip mocking animal rights activists because it joked about setting a dog on fire, and he did it not once, not twice, but three times. Never mind that the dog was a stuffed animal sitting in a doghouse. No doubt, were I to post the Black Knight scene from Monty Python, Dr. Jay’d show up on Twitter again calling me despicable for posting video clips that joke about amputation.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

24 replies on “Grammar Nazis”

He’d do it in between tweets making light of people being hospitalized for measles and blog comments lamenting the lack of acceptance of eugenics.

I read this on my iPad and frequently, as this time, embedded videos don’t show up at all. So, a small request to our benevolent master: if you embed the video, I’d be grateful if you would also include a link (to YouTube?) so I can try another path to see it.

The meaning of satire is lost on Jay, especially when his goal is to smear point out how despicable you are. Speaking of which, that recent kids’ movie was about you and your plot to take over the world, wasn’t it?

Oh, and if Jay deigns to show up, perhaps he wouldn’t mind answering the unanswered question from the other thread: to wit, what evidence does he have that measles has existed in symbiosis with humans. But please post your answer in that thread, so as not to derail this one.

Thank you, mercurianferret (love your nym). I knew someone would help me out. I was able to watch it on YouTube.

Do note the refugee under the floor defeats the SS officer with a superior knowledge of grammar, and he kills himself.

Grammar: good
Nazisim about anything: bad

The joke here, of course, is a variation on the Monty Python ‘Bridge of Death’ sequence: http://tinyurl.com/5uv5xky

Evidently, college humor is also a good place to find videos about Nazi Zombies.

Oh no Orac, I am the Queen of run-on sentences. It helps when confronted by grammar nazis to plead nolo contendre.

Orac is concerned that:

“…Dr. Jay Gordon will start posting Tweets that castigate me as “despicable” for posting a video that jokes about killing grammar Nazis…”

Not to quibble, but the video showed the grammar nazi committing suicide, so any Twits* by “Dr. Jay” would have to be how you are encouraging grammar nazis to kill themselves. Perhaps “Dr. Jay” will rant about how you are encouraging suicide. Once you remove the limitations of reason – as “Dr. Jay” so clearly has – nearly anything is possible.

[For all of you Twitter Nazis out there, I am aware that the proper term for the message is “Tweet”, but pretty much anything “tweeted” by Dr. Jay is better described as a “Twit”.]

Prometheus

Not to quibble, but the video showed the grammar nazi committing suicide, so any Twits* by “Dr. Jay” would have to be how you are encouraging grammar nazis to kill themselves.

I am quite aware of that. I was simply trying not to give away the punchline.

Okay, that video is seriously breaking the site and this post. About half the time, nothing ever loads beneath it. Do you have a tag hanging open somewhere or something?

yesterday Dr. Jay Tweeted his outrage over my use of an old Mitchell and Webb clip mocking animal rights activists because it joked about setting a dog on fire

Had the outrage come from anyone else, I would imagine it was a sarcastic comment on Orac’s serious response to his own Brady Bunch argument.
Events have convinced me that Dr Gordon and irony are not mutually acquainted.

Hm. Gram-Aryans. . . who’d have thunk it.
may they get paper cuts and thereafter hear the words “gram negative”

“he did it not once, not twice, but three times”
You missed your opportunity to use the word thrice. I hope you’ll be more careful in the future. Thrice!

That’s the problem with the humor-impaired (Dr. Jay and most of the Antivaxxers), the more serious they become, the more irresistible it becomes to mock them and the heinous cycle begins once again. It also keeps the Irony Meter industry humming along.

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