SPOGG in the News
The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar has been mentioned in
some of the world's finest publications, including The New York Times
and the Wall Street Journal. For a news release about National Grammar
Day, click here.
The New York Times
October 21, 2007
The Age of Dissonance
YOUR MODIFIER IS DANGLING
Not long ago, an elderly friend and grammar stickler stopped me
midsentence. I had just said, “They gave it to him and I,” when it should
have been “him and me.”
“You have to keep in mind the object of the preposition,” she gently told
me.
I felt ashamed, but also grateful to be corrected.
“And now you won’t embarrass yourself in front of someone else,” she
said.
Read more...
Voice of America Radio
Group Led by Seattle Writer Promotes Good (Not Perfect) Grammar
13 November 2007
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AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: Martha
Brockenbrough, a writer in Seattle and founder of SPOGG, the Society for the
Promotion of Good Grammar. Five thousand people get her free e-mails about
grammar, usage and what she calls "related outrages," and she has a blog at her
Web site, spogg.org. She's always watching for errors like misplaced modifiers.
MARTHA BROCKENBROUGH: "I found one last week in a letter home from school. They
were encouraging us to have our daughter apply to pre-school and they said
'Believing in a nurturing environment, our preschool is located in a house.'
Well, 'our preschool' is the subject of that sentence. Does our preschool
believe in the nurturing environment, or do the teachers? And so it's the sort
of thing that can be confusing.
Read more...
The Wall Street Journal
Especially During the Holidays, 'Gift' Is a Verb That Just Keeps on
'Gifting
By Elizabeth Holmes
It's better to give than to receive, but is it even better to gift?
The noun "gift" is a popular word, synonymous with "present." But this
holiday season, it's cropping up increasingly as an encouraging verb -- as in,
to give something to somebody.
Read more...
Ashland Daily Tidings
By Jennifer Margulis
Tidings Correspondent
Mark your
calendars. Not for Ground Hog Day. Not for Martin Luther King's Birthday
Observed. But for National Grammar Day.
It's coming (or is it its coming?).
March 4 is National Grammar Day.
Read more...