Grammar Nazi: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Grammar Natzee revised by doommech33 7836.jpg|frame|Sieg Whom!!]]

 

Somewhere along the line, Grammar Nazis got more into the form than the content. They sometimes leave snarky little notes in discussion areas about the correct use of italics or where the apostrophe goes in "its/it's." They don't actually add any new content—except possibly passive-aggressive "help" articles on proper usage of the semicolon. At their worst, they are known for insisting on "rules of English" which are derived from French and other Latin-descended languages, and were invented for the sole purpose of annoying English-speakers. They'll also likely become a [[Serial Tweaker]], careful to quickly correct their own mistakes. (We hope.)

Be careful when and how you accuse someone of being a Grammar Nazi, because doing so is, by definition, an automatic invocation of [[Godwin's Law]]. Being a Grammar Nazi can occasionally be a good thing, especially when [[Illiteracy Communist (Darth Wiki)|Illiteracy Communists]] are utterly mangling the English language. And when you do so, don't misspell "Grammar" (like the trope image did). This isn't ''[[Frasier]]''. (Or ''[[Greek]]''.)

 

 

But of course, some people -- [[Godwin's Law]] or not - bear the title with pride. [[Super OCD|They seek order within the literary confines of the Internet]]. [[Utopia Justifies the Means|S'not such a bad cause, aye]]? A good rule of thumb to distinguish between "good" and "[[Troll|bad]]" ones is: the former will usually overlook [[Self-Demonstrating Article|ovbious tyops]].

 

Compare [[You Make Me Sic]].

 

== Advertising ==

* [[Orson Welles]] became one when he did a voiceover commercial for [[wikipedia:Frozen Peas|frozen peas]].

* "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should," was attacked by Grammar Nazis for using "like" instead of "as." A subsequent campaign asked, "What do you want, good grammar or good taste?"

 

== Comic Books ==

* [[Lobo]] had once been captured by Grammar Nazis who forced him into a competition to see if he would be allowed to join them in their crusade to cleanse language from error (and exterminate malapropers). It ended when Lobo tried to get his grade school teacher out of the competition, only for her to reveal he had cut her legs and them preparing to kill him by shooting... And removing him from the gas trap that was keeping him at bay. No Grammar Nazi survived the encounter.

* The [[Green Lantern]] miniseries ''Emerald Dawn 2'' shows Sinestro correcting the syntax of people he's beating down back when he's Hal Jordan's Corps-appointed mentor.

 

== Fan Works ==

* A humorous short ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6414487/1/Sergeant_major_SchoolMarm fic] features a Grammar Ranger—the premise is that Beach Head is getting tired of deciphering poorly written reports, and drags several of his soldiers in for a refresher course.

 

== Films -- Animation ==

* In ''[[Beavis and Butthead]] Do America'', the detective pursuing the eponymous pair chastises his underling for ending a sentence in a preposition. The underling later struggles to reform his sentences to avoid this (apocryphal) rule.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* Lionel from ''[[Murder By Death]]'', who continuously corrects Sidney Wang's [[Asian Speekee Engrish]] throughout the film.

{{quote|''"Pronounce your goddamn pronouns!"''}}

 

== Literature ==

** This is likely an [[Write Who You Know|exaggeration of his own mother]], a community-college English professor who raised her children with songs about grammar mistakes and pretending to go into a coughing fit whenever one of them used a solecism (which Wallace in retrospect admitted was rather chilling). On the other hand, she never got ''nearly'' as grammar-crazy (much less anything else-crazy) as [[Stepford Smiler|Avril Incandenza]]...

* Josephine Anwhistle from ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' is a perfect example of a typical Grammar Nazi, going so far as to pointing out Sunny Baudelaire's utterances as nonsense even if she's yet to speak coherently. Played with somewhat in that she uses bad grammar to relay a secret message to the Baudelaires. Unfortunately she corrects the [[Axe Crazy]] villain's grammar as well...

{{quote|''To My Kind Editor,''

''Please rewrite another editor's note to read as follows:''

{{quote|''But those were times when, to forget an evil world, grammarians took pleasure in abstruse questions. I was told that in that period, for fifteen days and fifteen nights, the rhetoricians Gabundus and Terentius argued on the vocative of "ego", and in the end they attacked each other, with weapons.''}}

* "The Eyes Have It" is a short comedy by [[Philip K. Dick]] where [[The Narrator]] believes Earth is infiltrated by aliens after reading a line in a novel in which a character's eyes "moved about the room". References to characters having "no brains" or "no spine" only [[Bizarre Alien Biology|reinforce his apprehension]]. In the end however the protagonist decides not to do anything about the [[Alien Invasion]]. He doesn't have the stomach for it.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

'''Davos:''' Pardon?

'''Stannis:''' Four ''fewer'' fingernails to clean. }}

 

== Music ==

* On a mid-'90s [[Alvin and The Chipmunks]] country collaboration album, Simon is paired with Aaron Tippin to sing Tippin's "There Ain't Nothing Wrong with the Radio". When Simon starts singing, he corrects the grammar "flaws" on the fly, but eventually, Aaron gets him to lighten up on the Grammar Nazism.

* It may be apocryphal (although I think they've told it themselves on at least one occasion), but there's a story that Neil Tennant of [[Pet Shop Boys]] used to return fan mail with all the grammar and spelling errors meticulously corrected. As he used to edit magazines for a living, this kind of makes sense...

 

 

== Radio ==

 

== Theater ==

* "[[Sarcasm Mode|Poor]] [[Jerkass|Professor]] [[He-Man Woman Hater|Higgins]]" from ''[[Pygmalion]]'' is a [[Deconstruction]] of this trope. Once the [[Rags to Riches|impoverished flower girl, Eliza]], completes his [[Tough Love]] program, she leaves him.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* Taken to almost literal extremes in ''[[Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten]]''—upon discovering typo in a newspaper article, Val decides that the best course of action is to ''invade the Information Bureau'' in order to get it fixed.

 

== Web Comics ==

 

== Web Original ==

{{quote|'''LaPadite:''' There was no Jews here.

'''Landa:''' Jew, or Jews, plural?

 

== Western Animation ==

 

== Real Life ==

* The aptly named Kelsey Grammer (TV's ''[[Frasier]]'') says when he talks to people he often stops the conversation to correct them on the proper use of the English language.

* Similarly, the late [[The Odd Couple|Tony Randall]] corrected the host's grammar in at least one appearance on ''[[The Hollywood Squares]]''.

{{quote|'''Sean Hannity:''' What I said was that your opinion was thoughtless, what you wrote was crude, and mean, and hateful.

'''[[Christopher Hitchens]]:''' And then you took up all the time for my answer with your long, rather unlettered questioning. }}

* This kind of behaviour is not limited to English speakers. Germans ''love'' it, to the point that there's even a ''bestselling'' series of books (called "''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod''") dealing with all kinds of grammar and spelling errors occurring in everyday German. But beware not to use the exact term in front of the average German (not even necessarily towards him!) ever. [[Never Live It Down|Germans regard the issue as much too serious to even think of using the term jokingly.]]

 

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