We’re big fans of David Mitchell here at GrammarBlog towers so you can imagine the excitement when he released this podcast ranting about many of the topics that have previously been discussed in our blog.


I didn’t post about Stephen Fry’s oration on language last year. I intended to but just never got around to it. The podgramme is still available for download and I suggest you take a listen.

In the podgramme, Stephen eloquently gushes about his love for language and admits to being a recovering pedant. He laments the rise of Lynne Truss and her barmy army and urges everyone to enjoy and use language without worrying about the shackles of punctuation and syntax. Just make it beautiful.

Who could argue with such a noble and sweet and cuddly notion as that? Obviously I agree with everything he says. After all, disagreeing with Stephen Fry is a bit like disagreeing with time. The problem is, I don’t quite believe him.

I believe that Stephen is noble and sweet and cuddly, of course, even though he’s a bit less cuddly than he used to be thanks to all the travel. But I don’t believe he doesn’t feel that pang of annoyance mixed with smug glee when he sees or hears a glaring grammatical error, a malapropism or a mondegreen. I just don’t believe he doesn’t judge people who use poor grammar.

David Mitchell has no problem admitting this and for that, Grammarblog salutes him.

*Update*
In her comment below, Judith reminded me of a very early GrammarBlog post in which I commented on Stephen Fry’s ruthless correction of Alan Davies’ use of ‘none’ as plural.