Limes with Orange

While trying to research whether the Washington Post has done a neologism contest recently (see my 2005 Neologism Contest post), I discovered this site called Mental Floss Magazine: Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix. They have a fairly recent post about neologisms, but they're ones that I've already seen. But I decided to have a browse around their blog and was quite delighted by their eclectic subject matter. I was ready to write a post based on the front page of their blog, "Not with a bang, but with a Winter"... where I would talk about the next wave of nuclear-based post-apocalyptic movies likely to come out of Hollywood based on that information, but decided to see if there was anything else I wanted to write about that was closer to my original subject.

That's when I noticed a post entitled "Weekend Word Wrap: Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies." As someone who has been called not only a Grammar Snob but a Grammar Nazi, I was mentally clapping my hands with glee. It was a "review" of "Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite," a book that the reviewer hasn't actually read yet but that he was eager to read. And so was I, until I read the reviews on Amazon.com. Now, I never judge a book entirely based on other people's reviews (or its cover... oh, I slay me), but when the bad reviews make more sense than the good reviews... well, it makes a grrl wary.

I have a feeling that I would fall into the author's category of Grammar Snobs. Which is rather laughable; I'm sooo not a Grammar Nazi OR Snob... as anybody who reads my blog can aver. I play fast and loose with the English language all the time, but I like to know the correct way of wording something so I can decide whether or not it suits me to write it the right way at that time. As R. Buckminster Fuller says, "If you know that I know how to say it all correctly (the exact meaning of which I have not yet learned) then I am entitled to say it all incorrectly."

Hmm, I feel like I should file this post under "malevolently well-informed."

Labels: books and literature, cool sites, language, writing