It must have been a great fire. Rather than read Bill O’Reilly’s book ‘Pinheads and Patriots,’ American soldiers at an outpost in Afghanistan burned them.
According to a Tumblr maintained by a soldier serving in Afghanistan,
“Some jerk sent us two boxes of this awful book (SPOILER ALERT: George Washington — Patriot; George Soros — Pinhead) instead of anything soldiers at a remote outpost in Afghanistan might need, like, say, food or soap. Just burned the whole lot of them on my Commander’s orders.”
Apparently Bill O’Reilly and many other conservatives would rather send propaganda to our troops than send things the troops actually need. We shouldn’t really be surprised of course. Conservatives have been leading the effort to indoctrinate the American people for decades now. Note to conservatives: If you’re going to send a care package to soldiers, leave out the conservative propaganda and send Hershey bars, thank you letters, clothing, soap, novels, and other needed items that keep the morale high. Our soldiers do not need, nor apparently do they want, political crap from a Fox News shill.
Thank you, Bill. I do place a lot of importance on good grammar and correct spelling. Good thing I have a great computer or I would have just placed a lot of importance on good grammer.
One thing that I have come to appreciate in the internet age is a good, sound argument. I’m not so much concerned with the language, grammar and such, but more in the reasoning and logic. I think part of this is because I have a lot of experience dealing with people for whom English is a second (or third) language and so I reflexively overlook their simple errors. I guess I’ve adapted the same standards to my greatly enlarged intake of language since I’ve started spending so much time on these sorts of postings.
The firestorm that swirled for days over Alex LaPorta’s grammatical miscue in an Internet news article has apparently vaulted the struggling author to celebrity status and rumors are circulating that the Fox News Channel is lining up an appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s “Pinhead” segment. According to a knowledgeable source, LaPorta may land a full-time gig as a grammar consultant at Fox. “If Alex can cut the mustard with Bill O’, he can write his own ticket,” whispered an anonymous insider, who claims to have once stood next to the legendary Steve Doocy in an elevator, going down. Further evidence of LaPorta’s emergence as a major player in the field of words and phrases: a pending action by the Royal Grammarian Society to adopt a more flexible system of Internet grammar, “more reflective of the mentality of the average reader and the skill of the Internet writer.” The relaxed standards will be known as “LaPortables,” in honor of the man who stunned progressives and progressive-wannabees with his now-infamous grammatical boner, otherwise known as “must-of-gate.” Meanwhile, reports of loud talk and argumentative banter, overheard at several Starbuck’s locations, would seem to indicate that the furor has not subsided (even though LaPorta’s grammatical sacrilege was subsequently cleansed).
I am a professional writer, and have been for over 30 years. Most of the time, I don’t care if someone uses proper grammar as long as they communicate clearly, even though I would INFINITELY prefer it if they did use proper grammar. However, when the meaning of the sentence is clouded, when your eyes “stumble” over a bad construction, I have an issue.
The author, listed as Stephen D. Foster Jr. (does anyone else see the humor in that name, by the way?), ruins an otherwise well-written article with that bad first sentence. Obviously I read the entire article in spite of the bad first sentence, but I wonder how many did NOT, that might have learned something from it or enjoyed it. Self-edit, folks, even on a blog! If you want to convince someone that you have a valid viewpoint, it helps if you sound intelligent and moderately well educated…
In before “OMG BOOK BURNING! IT’S JUST LIEK TEH NAZIS!!1″
This article doesn’t have “Alex La Porta’S” byline, but there’s been plenty of time by now on a WordPress platform to quietly edit the damn first sentence. Wonder why it hasn’t been done, and instead the “author” wants to be all hostile and defensive about it, or suggest it doesn’t matter. Sure it matters. People don’t take what you have to say seriously if you can’t command the language. That’s why it’s widely rumored that Southern people are dumb, or that immigrants who are ELLs are, or whatever. It’s CRAP to say it doesn’t matter. YES it matters.
Language is fluid, ever-changing, and dynamic. Some things matter and some don’t. In my opinion this does NOT matter. Far less damaging than say, a dangling participle. Do you understand where I’m going to? LOL
There are two purposes for language: to communicate and to segregate. Unfortunately, in a forum such as this one, segregation is a factor. In that sense, there are certain traditions that one should not violate–and some things that, regardless of how the language changes, are signs of a weak writer. One of these is to use “of” instead of “have” in forming a compound past tense. It is simply a sign of a weak writer. Live with it.
Likewise, I wrote that I suspect that Alex was a troll, not the author of this article. This is because he was rude and argumentative in response to someone who was not even directly insulting him, and used catch phrases and name-calling instead of attempting to express a reasoned opinion. These are the hallmarks of an internet troll.
Believe as you wish. I’ve stated how I feel about this.
I don’t mean to get your goat, but as far as Alex’s alleged “troll” status, I think it’s only fair to hide under that bridge when we come to it.
I agree with Tom Payne totally.
Plus, considering the brevity of this article, I’m pretty sure that the writer wasn’t banking on winning a Peabody or a Pulitzer. It seems that the purpose would have been to get information out there quickly. I don’t mind reading quick articles that may have the occasional typo.
Further, I don’t mean to so strongly defend the writer, but I would like to believe that this was merely a kind of typo and not a lack of grammatical sense. This mistake is made because ALL NATIVE SPEAKERS *SPEAK* like this. Is it wrong in writing? Of course. Is it an indication that the writer doesn’t know basic grammar? I doubt it. Is it an understandable slip up. Quite possibly.
I left a further response after that huge conversation I came home to. Please check it out.
Get over it, already. Did the misplaced, “of” word put a wrench in your day? LOLz Oh my goodness! :-D …People will bitch @ just about anything.
they weren’t real soldiers anyway.
/limbaugh
No body = nobody? Hmmmm
Get over it!