Grammar Nazi: Difference between revisions

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More moderate Grammar Nazis, ironically, strive to treat English like the Germanic language it is.
 
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 (TV)|Frasier]]''. (Or ''[[Greek]]''.)
 
Often, people will be accused of being Grammar Nazis by someone who simply cannot grasp simple second-grade English concepts, such as confusing "you're" for "your". Even worse, a Grammar Nazi will jump all over people who use grammar that is technically incorrect but that [[Reality Is Unrealistic|seems correct because]] ''[[Reality Is Unrealistic|everyone]]'' [[Reality Is Unrealistic|(except for the Grammar Nazis, of course) uses it]], such as "It is me" instead of "It is I."
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== Comic Books ==
* Herr Starr, from ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'', who destroys a subordinate's report with a handgun for [http://www.freewebs.com/dobermansatplay/Preacher3.jpg "Improper use of inverted commas!]" (The subordinate had used quotation marks, instead of bold or italic face, for emphasis.)
* Yorick from ''[[Y: theThe Last Man (Comic Book)|Y the Last Man]]'' is an English major and as such, often points out others grammatical mistakes and even his own on occasion. An especially nice example is when he tells a journalist that she splits more infinitives than Gene Roddenberry.
* Minor ''[[Spider-Man (Franchise)|Spider-Man]]'' villain Spellcheck is such a stickler for grammar, syntax, and usage that he, inspired by the letter and punctuation themed Typeface, puts on a costume and beats people up over it. He goes after Spider-Man because the hyphen in his name is unnecessary.
* [[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 (Comic Book)|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.
 
 
== Comic Strips ==
* Andy Fox of the comic strip ''[[FoxTrot (Comic Strip)|FoxTrot]]'' has been known to rant at her children for using improper grammar. In one strip she explains to her older son that she couldn't help correcting him because, as an English major, she believes that proper grammar is important.
* Rose Gumbo from ''[[Rose Is Rose (Comic Strip)|Rose Is Rose]]'' is shown to be this in a few strips.
* Someone once asked Lemont of ''[[Candorville (Comic Strip)|Candorville]]'' who died and made him the grammar police. He responded that he was actually being the idiom police.
* Joe's mother from ''[[Jump Start (Comic Strip)|Jump Start]]''.
* The [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/StrunkAndPtah 6 October 2011] ''[[Non Sequitur (Comiccomic Stripstrip)|Non Sequitur]]'' features a nonsensical version of this trope in ancient Egypt.
 
 
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== Films -- Animation ==
* In ''[[Beavis and Butthead (Animation)|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 ==
* ''[[Monty PythonsPython's Life of Brian]]'': [[John Cleese (Creator)|A centurion]], catching Brian in the act of writing anti-Roman graffiti, makes him correct his Latin grammar at sword point. Then he makes Brian write it out 100 times -- ''all over the walls of the palace!''
{{quote| "People called 'Romanes', they go the house?"<br />
"Domus? ''[[Funny Moments|Nominative?!]]''" }}
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'''Becker:''' I don't know no York, and where's my food?<br />
'''Luger:''' We ate it. And please, no double negatives. }}
* Aro in the film version of ''[[Twilight (Filmnovel)|Breaking Dawn]]''.
* Lionel from ''[[Murder By Death]]'', who continuously corrects Sidney Wang's [[Asian Speekee Engrish]] throughout the film.
{{quote| ''"Pronounce your goddamn pronouns!"''}}
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* Avril Incandenza of [[David Foster Wallace]]'s ''[[Infinite Jest]]'' made her ''career'' out of this, leading a wave of linguistic prescription including ''riots'' over the damned thing, incorporating rigorous education in English grammar in the [[Elaborate University High|Enfield Tennis Academy]] curriculum (which in fairness is based on the medieval ''trivium'' and ''quadrivium'', which ''did'' include [Latin] grammar), and leading a group called the Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts, whose primary activity seems to be hassling supermarkets over "10 items or less" signs on express lanes ("It should be 10 items or ''fewer''!").<br />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...
* Most members on the noble side of mysterious organization V.F.D. are revealed to be this, in ''[[Lemony Snicket the Unauthorized Autobiography (Literature)|Lemony Snicket the Unauthorized Autobiography]]''. Another editor's note in the latter stated that "Some of the photographs in this book were taken by Julie Blattberg", which was promptly followed by a note from Mr. Snicket reading:
{{quote| ''To My Kind Editor,''<br />
''Please rewrite another editor's note to read as follows:''<br />
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''-LS'' }}
* In a parody book called ''[[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo|The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo]]'', Kaal is described as "not the biggest, bravest or fieriest dragon in Scandragonia, but he was certainly the most ''pedantic''." Hence, when Helltrik Vagner talks about "farming of goats, sheeps and pigs", Kaal has to correct him on it. This leads to three and a half pages of the two interrupting Vagner's story to revive the argument.
* Minor mention in ''[[The Name of the Rose (Literature)|The Name of the Rose]]'':
{{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 ==
* One skit from ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'' involves Mitchell's character shooting employees who spell or pronounce words wrong (he mentions shooting his own wife for, ironically, getting "mispronunciation" wrong). He Goes even further: he shot someone for pronouncing "H" "Haitch" instead of "Aitch". When ''he'' makes a mistake, he has a [[My God, What Have I Done?|"What have I done?"]] moment and shoots himself. {{spoiler|He manages a [[Last Breath Bullet]] when someone says "whoever" instead of "whomever"}}.
* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]''
** The Doctor, or at least [[The Nth Doctor|the Tenth]], a.k.a. Mister Conditional Clause.
** The Master does this in the Eighth Doctor movie.
* The title character of ''[[Castle]]'' falls into this occasionally, at one point critiquing the grammar of a murderer who wrote on the victim's face, and used "your" instead of "you're".
{{quote| '''Castle:''' It's not like you're just leaving yourself a note, you know, to buy bread on the way home. You're writing on ''a person you just murdered''. You're trying to make a point, a point you care a great deal about, presumably, because you just killed someone to make it. So how do you not make sure you're using the proper language to make that point?}}
* In the [[Batman Cold Open]] of an episode of ''[[Sherlock (TV)|Sherlock]]'', a prospective client describes the events leading to his wife's murder, but is repeatedly interrupted by Holmes to correct his grammar.
* In ''[[Stargate SG-1 (TV)|Stargate SG-1]]'', Jack O'Neill does a surprising amount of this.
{{quote| '''Jaffa:''' No matter what you have endured, you have never endured the likes of what Anubis is capable of.<br />
'''O'Neill:''' ''(gasping)'' You... ended that sentence with a preposition... bastard. }}
* Ross from ''[[Friends (TV)|Friends]]'' was often this kind of Nazi or at least his irriated friends had the opinion that he was. He had a habit of correcting people when they misused 'who' for 'whom' and occasionally could become quite irrate when confronted with bad grammar (or he would get angry about something else but still feel compelled to nitpick).
{{quote| '''Ross:''' Oh oh oh, and by the way, Y-O-U-apostrophe-R-E means "you are". Y-O-U-R MEANS "YOUR"!}}
* Diane does this on ''[[Cheers (TV)|Cheers]]'' a lot with Sam:
{{quote| '''Sam:''' She's trying to become the kind of waitress that you'd enjoy being waited on by.<br />
'''Diane:''' ''(whispering)'' You just ended that sentence with two prepositions...<br />
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'''Diane:''' That ended with a preposition, too...<br />
'''Sam:''' Don't you have customers to deal with, mullet head? }}
* In one episode of ''[[Jonathan Creek (TV)|Jonathan Creek]]'', part of the solution relies on the fact that the name of the house is spelled "GHOSTS FORGE," with no apostrophe in "GHOSTS".
* ''[[Game of Thrones (TV)|Game of Thrones]]'' has this exchange between King Stannis Baratheon, [[Principles Zealot]] extraordinaire, and his former smuggler advisor Davos Seaworth:
{{quote| '''Stannis:''' Do your knucklebones bring you luck?<br />
'''Davos:''' Well, life's been good to me since you hacked them off, Your Grace. And it's four less fingernails to clean.<br />
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* In ''Fairy Tales'' by Eric Lane Barnes, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdLayHnPn9o "The Letter Song"] is about a jilted man reading a letter about his boyfriend leaving him for another man. But that doesn't bother him, what ''is'' driving him up the wall is the terrible grammar used.
* In "The Worst That Could Happen" a man is singing to a woman who has dumped him for someone else. He sings, "Baby, if he loves you more than me, maybe it's the best thing for you, but it's the worst that could happen to me." This sentence, of course is saying that if the other man loves the woman more than he loves the man singing, it's the worst that could happen. After all these years, we find out that the other man was the singer's lover and is leaving him for a woman.
* In "Ben", [[Michael Jackson (Music)|Michael Jackson]] (back when he was a little black boy) sang, "I used to say, 'I am me', now I say 'we are we'." This drove Grammar Nazis completely crazy.
* "Tongue-Clucking Grammarian" by MC Frontalot.
* On a mid-'90s [[Alvin and The Chipmunks (Animation)|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 (Music)|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...
 
 
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== Radio ==
* Ed Reardon, writer and misanthrope, main character of ''[[Ed Reardons Week (Radio)|Ed Reardons Week]]''. Malformed plurals or possessives have been known to send him into histrionics. The first life lesson he gives his eight-week-old grandson is: "Now, to the children's section. There's an apostrophe between the N and the S. Remember that and you won't go far wrong."
 
 
== 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.
* Happens in ''[[1776 (Theatre)|Seventeen Seventy Six]]'' when, of all people, [[John Adams]] raises an objection to the Declaration of Independence, claiming that [[Thomas Jefferson]] used the word 'inalienable' when he should have used "unalienable". Jefferson refused to change it, and Adams withdrew his objection, saying he'd speak to the printer later about it. Funny thing is? [http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/unalienable.htm He did.]
 
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Taken to almost literal extremes in ''[[Disgaea 4 a Promise Unforgotten (Video Game)|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.
* In [[Risen|Risen 2: Dark Waters]] gnome leader is this of all peo.. err, individuals. When learning human language he put so much effort in this that he got the rules better than pretty much all the humans (including the main hero) and is condtanlty correcting the conversation partner on proper use of gramar (again, including the main character which drives him nuts). It stands out especially hard since gnomes in general do not speak human language at all and are not known for theit intelligence or regard to any rules.
 
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* Another favorite is the Grammar Nazi from ''[http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040628.html Queen of Wands]''.
* The [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20090714.html North American Grammar Squirrel,] who corrects the cast of ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'' at the expense of their fourth wall.
* ''[[The Perry Bible Fellowship (Comic Strip)|The Perry Bible Fellowship]]'' has, as always, its own [http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF099-Grammar_Wizard.gif twisted take] on the concept.
* Meanwhile, in absolute obscurity, the Fairy of Good Grammar from ''[[Spelling the Vacuum]]'', whose grammar powers tie the universe together.
* The [http://www.explosm.net/comics/997/ grammar sheriff] from ''[[Cyanide and Happiness (Webcomic)|Cyanide and Happiness]]''.
* Xykon, the [[Evil Sorcerer]] lich from ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|The Order of the Stick]]'', can be this too. Mostly about [[Psmith Psyndrome|how his name is spelled]], but not exclusively (although it should be noted that Xykon has killed people for less):
{{quote| '''Tsukiko:''' We need a new Head Executioner, you know. Xykon killed the last one for spelling "guillotine" wrong on his daily reports.}}
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'', Mr. Raven is [http://egscomics.com/?date=2008-04-18 presented] and [http://egscomics.com/?date=2008-06-20 referenced] as one, and his Hitler Forelock does not help his case at all.
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance (Webcomic)|Sluggy Freelance]]'' parodied this with Grammer[sic] Gorilla, who attempts to be a [[Grammar Nazi]], but his [[You No Take Candle|own grammar is atrocious.]]
* ''[[Ozy and Millie (Webcomic)|Ozy and Millie]]'': As Millie puts it, she "just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain, and now it's on to Grammar Poland and Grammar World Conquest!". Ozy proceeds by calling her an Analogy Nazi.
* Grammar is just one of the many things that makes Butch of ''[[Chopping Block]]'' completely flip out. [http://choppingblock.keenspot.com/d/20090505.html Case in point.]
* In ''[[Our Little Adventure]]'', [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0324.html the use of contractions calls for abuse.]
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== Web Original ==
* A [[College Humor]] pastiche of ''[[Inglourious Basterds (Film)|Inglourious Basterds]]'' shows that some Grammar Nazis are, in fact, [http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1935115 actual Nazis].
{{quote| '''LaPadite:''' There was no Jews here.<br />
'''Landa:''' Jew, or Jews, plural?<br />
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== Western Animation ==
* The bookish and [[Adorkable]] Twilight Sparkle in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' has shades of this occasionally. In [[My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (Animation)/Recap/S2 E24 Mystery On the Friendship Express|"MMMystery on the Friendship Express"]] she tries to correct Pinkie Pie talking about a mystery as a "whodunnit" to "who did it", but this only makes Pinkie worse ("who did done dood it").
 
 
== Real Life ==
* The aptly named Kelsey Grammer (TV's ''[[Frasier (TV)|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]]''.
* From Hannity & Colmes: