Grammar Nazi/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Perrier Lapadite: I swear I do not know where Mademoiselle Dreyfus was at!
Hans Landa: Did you just end a sentence with a preposition?
Perrier Lapadite: ... forgive me, Colonel.

—From a parody[1] of Inglorious Basterds.
If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.

Ohhhh, if you want it to be possessive, it's just I-T-S,
But if it's supposed to be a contraction, then it's I-T-apostrophe-S...

Scalawag!
Strong Bad, Homestar Runner

Ego sum rex romanus et supra grammaticam.

Translated as: I am the King of Rome, and above grammar.
Sigismund I, Holy Roman Emperor
Correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays.
George Eliot, Middlemarch
This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.
Attributed to Winston Churchill (rejecting the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition)
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
Jack Lynch

Avery: What are you, some kind of grammar nazi?

Millie: Yep. I've just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain, and now it's off to Grammar Poland and Grammar World Conquest!!
The English language is being treated nowadays exactly... as the inmates of concentration camps were dealt with by their Nazi jailers.
—John Simon, film and theater critic

And I loved her even more than Marlon Brando loved soufflé
She was gorgeous, she was charming, yes, she was perfect in every way
Except she was always using the word "infer" when she obviously meant "imply"

And I know some guys would put up with that kind of thing, but frankly, I can't imagine why
"Weird Al" Yankovic, "Close but No Cigar"

Homer: Linguo...dead?!

Linguo the Grammar Robot: Linguo...IS...deeeeeaaaaad...(dies)
The Simpsons, episode "Trilogy of Error"
"Whoever killed her...also murdered the English language."
Rick Castle, who later goes on to correct who/whom and the improper use of the word ironic.

Agent Bork: Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in?
Agent Flemming: Bork! You are a federal agent. You represent the United States Government... Never end a sentence with a preposition. Try again.
Agent Bork: Oh, ah... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean that guy off in whose camper they were whacking?

Agent Flemming: That's better. Yes?
Beavis and Butthead Do America
"Y-O-U-R. Y-O-U-Apostrophe-R-E. They're as different as night and day. Don't you think that night and day are different? What's wrong with you?"
"We must invade the Bureau and bring them under our control! They WILL correct this typo!"
Sorry, I think you mean "who", not "whom". People WHO correct grammar in casual conversation are obnoxious. Now run along. Men are talking.
"Yes, they're the sort of dribbling unpardonable cretins that use "party" as a verb and, when I'm in charge and have established by Reich, those people are going to be punished."
"You ended a sentence with a preposition! Bastard!"
Col. Jack O'Neill, Stargate SG 1
There is a busybody on your staff who devotes a lot of time to chasing split infinitives... I call for the immediate dismissal of this pedant. It is of no consequence whether he decides to go quickly or to quickly go or quickly to go. The important thing is that he should go at once.
George Bernard Shaw, letter to the Times of London

How do you comfort a Grammar Nazi?

Pat his head softly and whisper, "There. Their. They're."
—Johan Larson