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“A Historic” vs “An Historic”: A PBS Special

1Jan

By jeff22 Comments

Society

“A Historic” vs “An Historic”: A PBS Special

In a(n) historic event hosted by your favorite public broadcasting service, two of the greatest grammarians of our time were at linguistic loggerheads for over 16 hours in an epic and heated philological face-off that we think is still going. And may never end. The debaters: Phyllis Whistlemaker - Though you may be able to deduce her family's professional origins based on simple etymology, you may not know that she was the author of such groundbreaking books as The History of the word History (and other words and their histories) and also Impersonal Pronouns: A Personal Narrative. Graham Hurnotzy - A legend in the grammar world, he is best known for reinvigorating the debate over whether or not brands (like Kleenex and Frisbee and Band-Aid) should also be used interchangeably as n...

Grammarian no Logger Givs a Fying Fluck

After seatting down one day four a leasurly reed of of his favurit fillosofer, Camoo, redired engrish pufesor Graham Hurnozty had a crishis of egzistenchal portions; He know logger gayve a fying fluck. The wrds and comas and pereods and such - at won time in purfect boxes lining the shhelvs of hi smind - now excaped like wild monkees frum the zu "Nufing reelly maders enymoor" Graham said despondently in a sing songy voyce. "Enyone can c. Nufing reelly maders....to meeeeeeee,, Wee wached this wonce starwalt of a mahn, a pillur of pryed and intelect, who's rulles were his glorey, becum a shelll ov his former sellf, Pityfull. Boken. Four waht wee widnessed. ANd four dis pour wretch of a sole - unhindjed and adrifft in a see of dispare - we aufer dis: l(a le af f...

Grammarian Exposes Dangling Participle

Grammar specialist and former Literary Arts professor, Dr. Graham Hurnotzy, was the subject of a major academic inquest last year following the horrid scandal of an exposed participle during a faculty get-together gone wild. According to his colleagues, Dr. Hurnotzy got a bit rambunctious after their quiz bowl win and lost all sense of propriety. “I just don’t know what he was thinking,” one tenured professor admitted. “It was shocking, really.” Dangling out there for the whole world to see, the good Dr. claimed that it was all a misunderstanding and that he was merely showing them what not to do when constructing their sentences. “Uhuh, right,” responded another faculty member quite skeptically. “And participial phrases don’t need gerunds (chuckles sarcastically). Am I righ...