Grammar Nazi: Difference between revisions

 

 

'''Hans Landa:''' Did you just [[Prepositions Are Not to End Sentences With|end a sentence with a preposition?]]<br />

'''Perrier Lapadite:''' ... [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|forgive me, Colonel.]]|From a parody<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4vf8N6GpdM This one, in fact.]</ref> of ''[[Inglorious Basterds]].''}}

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* ''[[Monty Python's Life of Brian]]'': [[John Cleese|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!''

"Domus? ''[[Funny Moments|Nominative?!]]''" }}

** [[Real Life]] Grammar Nazis agree that the centurion's corrections are [[Shown Their Work|spot on]], except for a minor reference to the locative case, which has nothing to do with the accusative construction "domum" (the locative would be "domi" and is more closely related to the ablative of location).

* In ''She Wore a Yellow Ribbon'', [[Fighting Irish|Sergeant Quincannon]] is drilling his troops and orders them to "Fix them bandoliers!" or something to that effect. Immediately someone yells out from the ranks: "Fix them grammar!"

* In ''[[Loaded Weapon 1]]'' we have this exchange:

'''Luger:''' We ate it. And please, no double negatives. }}

* Aro in the film version of ''[[Twilight (novel)|Breaking Dawn]]''.

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

 

 

* 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]]''. 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:

''-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]]'':

* "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.

 

** 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".

* In the [[Batman Cold Open]] of an episode of ''[[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]]'', Jack O'Neill does a surprising amount of this.

'''O'Neill:''' ''(gasping)'' You... ended that sentence with a preposition... bastard. }}

* Ross from ''[[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).

* Diane does this on ''[[Cheers]]'' a lot with Sam:

'''Sam:''' Don't you have customers to deal with, mullet head? }}

* In one episode of ''[[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]]'' has this exchange between King Stannis Baratheon, [[Principles Zealot]] extraordinaire, and his former smuggler advisor Davos Seaworth:

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

 

* The [http://www.explosm.net/comics/997/ grammar sheriff] from ''[[Cyanide and Happiness]]''.

* Xykon, the [[Evil Sorcerer]] lich from ''[[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):

* In ''[[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]]'' parodied this with Grammer[sic] Gorilla, who attempts to be a [[Grammar Nazi]], but his [[You No Take Candle|own grammar is atrocious.]]

== Web Original ==

* A [[College Humor]] pastiche of ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'' shows that some Grammar Nazis are, in fact, [http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1935115 actual Nazis].

'''Landa:''' WRONG! You have to match your subject with your verb! }}

** Except that Jews is the object; there is the subject.

:: Incidentally, he has a similar fate as the ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'' above.

'''Landa:''' [[My God, What Have I Done?|A dangling participle...]] ''([[Driven to Suicide|shoots himself in the head]])'' }}

* From a 1997 issue of ''[[The Onion]]'': [http://www.theonion.com/articles/nations-educators-alarmed-by-poorly-written-teen-s,1007/ Nation's Educators Alarmed By Poorly Written Teen Suicide Notes]

* 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:

'''[[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.]]