Martha Brockenbrough - Things That Make Us (Sic): A The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar Takes on Madison Avenue, Hollywood, the White House

Things That Make Us [Sic]

The Society for the Promotion
of Good Grammar
Takes on Madison Avenue,
Hollywood, the White House,
and the World

Martha Brockenbrough

ST. MARTINS PRESS New York

THINGS THAT MAKE US [SIC] . Copyright 2008 by Martha Brockenbrough.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
For information, address
St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Text illustrations by Jaime Temairik

BOOK DESIGN BY AMANDA DEWEY

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brokenbrough, Martha.
Things that make us [sic] : the Society for the Promotion of Good
Grammar takes on Madison Avenue, Hollywood, the White House, and the
world / Martha Brokenbrough.1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37808-0
ISBN-10: 0-312-37808-4
1. English languageUsage.
2. English languageErrors of usage. 3. English languageGrammar. I. Society for the Promotion of Good
Grammar. II. Title.
PE1460.B77 2008
428dc22

2008018129

First Edition: October 2008

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

To Adam, Lucy, and Alice.
And to Steve Higgins, who would have liked this.

I t was the fall of 2004 when I founded the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar after writing a column about secret societies for the online encyclopedia Encarta. The research astonished me. If you believe the reports, these secret societies run the free world and have for ages. It is true that some of their initiation rituals are unpleasantunless you happen to be the sort who likes lying naked in a coffin, in which case, you might be reading the wrong book.

Macabre nudity aside, it seemed to me that running the free world would make a swell ambition. No longer would friends and family titter behind their hands when I mentioned that Id studied English and classical studies in college. And, once I was in charge, I could do all sorts of good. For starters, I would see to it that no one would have to lie in a coffin without benefit of even undergarments. I needed only to figure out a platform: I knew what I wouldnt lie down for, but what would I stand for?

This led me back to the topic that has received the most reader interest in the eight years Ive written for Encarta: grammar.

Every time Ive discussed grammar or language in my educational humor column, Ive received hundreds of e-mail messages from people relieved to have someone defend correct writing and speech. While it is true that a movie column I wrote for MSN Movies titled Nude Scenes Id Rather Not See ultimately generated more traffic, its refreshing to note that good grammar takes a close second to bare skin.

To further the influence of my fledgling secret society, I built the SPOGG Web site anonymously, posting regular blog entries about grammar errors committed by celebrities, politicians, companies, and other power brokers. I also started writing stern letters to these high-profile offenders, as well as to Her Majesty the Queen, just to see what she thought had become of her English. (I believe she is not amused.)

This formed the heart of SPOGGs work: standing up for clean, correct, well-punctuated English. Were not the Society for the Promotion of Perfect Grammar, for several reasons. First, it would make a terrible acronym. Second, I am far too prone to errors despite my best intentions, and Id lose my membership quickly. Third, perfect grammar is impossible to achieve in an ever-shifting sea of rules. And finally, there are cases when good is either good enough, or better than perfect.

What we seek above all else is clarity, for ourselves, and for the people were communicating with. Who knows how many of the worlds huge problems could be solved if we had a little more of that?

As this book proves, we did eventually abandon the idea of keeping the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar a secret. Once the queen knew, it was going to be everywhere, anyway. Shes so not mum. This public venture has no doubt forfeited our ability to rule the world clutching a red pen in our iron fists, but its been altogether too enjoyable to meet thousands of like-minded people whove joined since we first organized.

With that, we welcome you to SPOGG. Feel free to clip this card and carry it with you always. You never know when youll have to use it for the good of humankind.

Its fine in most cases to end a sentence with a preposition. If you must, skip ahead to chapter 10 to read all about it.

The Society for the Promotion
of Good Grammar

Dear Noah R. Estrada:

You accidentally sent us an e-mail meant for a Mr. Bret U. Sandoval. Ordinarily, wed ignore this sort of thing, but we were so concerned for your grammar, we wanted to contact you so that you could clean things up a bit. Your mail read as follows:

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THIS, GOD! YOUR PENI-5 IS REALLY TINY?

DIDNT YOU FEEL, STUPID?

DONT LET THEM CHOOSE SEXUAL TOYS BUT NOT YOU! MEGADIK WILL MAKE YOU A REAL MAN ! YOU JUST HAVE TO TRUST THIS EXCELLENT PREPERATION!

Were not sure what a peni-5 is. Is that some sort of new currency? A poor cousin of the euro? If so, we agree; it would be annoying to have a small peni-5. The regular-sized ones are already hard enough to retrieve from gutters.

In any case, we wanted to let you know you might have inadvertently insulted Mr. Sandoval when you wrote, Didnt you feel, stupid?

We believe you meant to say, Didnt you feel stupid? The difference, of course, is that the first sentence calls him stupid, while the second empathizes with him for feeling that way because of his poor, tiny peni-5.

For all we know, Mr. Bret U. Sandoval might be the kind of guy who likes a little verbal spanking. We suspect, though, that youd have more luck in general if you were kind to your customers in your correspondence.

In any case, good luck with Megadik. Whatever the effect of this preparation (thats the correct spelling, by the way), were confident its every bit as high quality as your e-mail advertising it.

Sincerely,

The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar

P.S. There is no need to put a space before an exclamation point. Your penultimate sentence should read simply, Megadik will make you a real man!