Listening to Weird Al’s “Word Crimes.” Awesome. -- Jerz's Literacy Weblog (est. 1999)

My teaching method does not involve shaming students who make mistakes, and I’m not in the habit of correcting my peers and acquaintances when they make typos or use internet shorthand. I use abbreviations myself when I text message, and I make mistakes when I am distracted or when I’m more concerned with finding out when my daughter needs to be picked up than in writing complete sentences on my phone. Still, I do notice these things, and I cringe inwardly every time I can’t circle an error and ask someone to look up a rule or two and revise.

Thank you, Weird Al, for bringing up some of these points.

There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI

Sesame Street had a big plot twist in November 1986

I played hooky from work to see Wild Robot with my family

I’ve been teaching with this handout for over 25 years, updating it regularly. I just remo...

Sorry, not sorry. I don't want such friends.

5 thoughts on “Listening to Weird Al’s “Word Crimes.” Awesome.”

By doing such a good job making the kind of video a sterotypical prescriptive grammarian would love, he is opening up for ridicule the excessive zeal with which some people approach the never-ending task of correcting all perceived errors in human communication. Weird Al is so good a nailing so many things. Just as his “White and Nerdy” both celebrates and skewers his subject, I see “Word Crimes” in much the same light. “Blurred Lines” indeed.