Comments on: Nivea, your grammar stinks!

By: Gez

Gez — Sat, 09 May 2009 09:00:13 +0000

Your apology is appreciated but entirely unnnecessary. I hope you continue to read and enjoy the blog.

I’ll try to write more posts on matters such as this to break up the schadenfreude.

By: Duke

Duke — Sat, 09 May 2009 06:33:51 +0000

Well played, Gez. I definitely got caught being the prick on this one. My apologies for my arrogance and my ignorance of global differences within English. I did read the links you posted. They were really informative and I appreciate the guidance. Thank you.
Sincerely,
One Boorish Hypocrite

By: Gez

Gez — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:17:43 +0000

Duke, I admire your dogged commitment to grammar, believe me. I also to some extent admire your aggressive stance toward perceived mistakes. Yet does one mistake an illiterate make?

You seem to be under the impression that companies, boards and groups of people collectively should be treated as a single entity at all times.

You’re half right. Which makes you also half wrong. Which by your own high standards would make you semi-literate.

I’m guessing you’re from the USA. I say this only because a strict rule of treating collective nouns and groups as singular is generally adhered to by speakers of Microsoft US English.

Here in the UK we recognise the incongruity of speaking about groups of people as though they were one entity. Do the people all act as one, like a swarm? Can the entity itself realistically be described doing things for which the humans within it are responsible? It’s not easy and to force a rule without regarding context and common sense can make one’s sentences rather, well, forced.

In your comment, you inadvertently highlight the problems encountered when treating companies as single entities. I had to chuckle when I saw the following statement, hidden between the many layers of ‘irony’.

“I imagine this mistake showed up in their ad after they hired…”

You are, at this point, still referring to Nivea the single company and yet you use the plural pronoun and possessive in exactly the same way I did.

You’ll be glad to know that doing so doesn’t make you illiterate, merely a boorish hypocrite.

Your homework assignment is to read the following articles from people much cleverer and more knowledgeable than you or me. Especially you.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/collplural.html

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/collective-nouns.aspx

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-who-that.aspx

http://www.bartleby.com/68/46/246.html

By: Duke

Duke — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:03:27 +0000

I love irony. You choose to attack this Nivea ad, yet in the process, you commit an “unforgivable” grammatical error. Nivea is one company, not many. It’s singular. Singular nouns are accompanied by “is,” not “are.” It’s a little thing called subject verb agreement. So, your pissing and moaning should read “If Nivea is indeed…,” not “If Nivea are indeed…” I imagine this mistake showed up in their ad after they hired an arrogant illiterate, like you, to proofread it.

By: Gez

Gez — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:41:08 +0000

http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/SI/silver_nitrate.html

“Poisonous. Causes burns. Long-term exposure can cause permanent blue-grey staining of eyes, mouth, throat and skin, (argyria) and may cause eye damage. Short contact can lead to deposition of black silver stains on the skin. Very destructive of mucous membranes. Skin and eye irritant. Experimental equivocal tumorigenic agent.”

Not my words, Abby. The words of the Oxford University Chemistry department.

By: Abby P

Abby P — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:19:29 +0000

Ha ha, I have silver nitrate-stained hands right now, so it was amusing reading this article! I’m certainly glad it’s not that corrosive, otherwise I would have little black colored lesions all over my hands!

By: Cass

Cass — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:35:46 +0000

I believe they are trying to be colloquial. I imagine someone changed “have” to “of”.

By: Athena

Athena — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:14:53 +0000

I love seeing this. It fuels my mission to discover where the proofreaders of the world have gone to hide.

Seriously - we can’t continue to rely on spellcheck everyone!

By: Gez

Gez — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:28:43 +0000

Thanks for the science lesson, Henry. I was always under the impression that silver salts were corrosive. The example used in my A level chemistry (admittedly a long time ago) was that of babies having AgNO3 dropped into their eyes. Although a successful disinfectant, some babies, if over treated, became blind.

Thinking about it now though, it’s probably the “nitrate” bit that makes silver nitrate corrosive. Must do more research.

Dan, I know what I mean (usually).

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:33:13 +0000

“Does nobody proofread anymore?”

Surely you mean “Doesn’t anybody proofread anymore?”