Playing With / Grammar Correction Gag

Basic Trope: Being a Grammar Nazi during inappropriate times.

• Straight: Alice says "Me and Carol just got harassed on the way home!" and Bob says, "You mean, Carol and I."
• Exaggerated:
  • Alice attempts suicide, leaving behind a note that says "Everyone are too self-absorbed to help me." When she recovers, the first thing Bob does is yell at her for her grammatical mistake.
  • Bob receives a note that says "You're friend Alice has been kidnapped. If you want to see her alive, you have to pay us $100.000." Bob only bothers to hunt down the kidnappers because he wants to punish them for their grammatical mistake.
• Downplayed: Alice says "Me and Carol just got harassed!" and Bob shows appropriate concern, and only after helping her to calm down does he gently correct her grammar.
• Justified:
  • Bob is an English teacher, or an enthusiast of linguistics.^note In the latter case, Bob most likely does not have a proper education in linguistics — linguists never correct a person's grammar, as they apply to a strict philosophy of descriptivism — the way native speakers talk is deemed correct and is described, even if it contradicts rules set by some entity claiming to be an authority.
  • Alice is prone to making very silly grammatical mistakes.
  • Alice makes a grammatical mistake that may cause misunderstandings, and Bob wants to help her making herself understood.
  • Bob is intentionally trying to make her angrier.
• Inverted:
  • Alice says, "May I go now?" and Bob says, "Nobody says "may" anymore!"
  • Alice uses "whom" in a sentence, and Bob berates her for being old-fashioned or pretentious.
  • Bob fails to correct Alice's grammar when correcting would have been appropriate, such as in an English class.
  • Alice's grammar is flawless, and Bob's "correction" is the one that's wrong.
• Subverted:
  • Alice says "Me and Carol just got harassed!" and Bob says, "You mean, 'Carol and I'? ... Oh dear, tell me the whole story..."
  • Bob points out the numerous spelling errors while reading Alice's suicide note. It turns out that he has a perfectly legitimate reason to do so: he suspects that she was murdered by someone who has a shaky grasp of English and tried to write a fake suicide note.
• Double Subverted:
  • "...but not before I give you a grammar lesson!"
  • His suspicion is disproved — Alice did write the note and then kill herself — but Bob still bashes her for the bad grammar she showed in life.
• Parodied: Bob picks on Alice's grammar, even though his own grammar is at least as bad.
• Zig-Zagged: Bob says, "You mean 'Carol and I'? ... Oh dear, tell me the whole story ... but not before I give you a grammar lesson! I'm just kidding. Tell me what happened, but say 'Carol and I' from this point on, please."
• Averted: Bob ignores Alice's grammatical slip and simply responds to what she is telling him.
• Enforced: "I think we're running out of gags. Are there any acceptable targets we haven't attacked yet?" "No, there are some left. Let's portray Grammar Nazis as insensitive Jerk Asses with Skewed Priorities."
• Lampshaded:
  • "Geez, Bob, when did you become such a Grammar Nazi?"
  • "Bob, I just told you about being harassed, and your reaction is picking on my grammar. Don't you care about me at all?"
• Invoked: Bob's father was a linguistic purist and raised him to be the same.
• Exploited:
  • Danielle writes Bob a letter that contains tons and tons of grammatical errors, knowing he'll be distracted for a long time while picking on them.
  • Emperor Evulz makes a sign with several obvious grammatical errors. He knows that Bob can't resist correcting them, and uses the sign as bait in a trap.
• Defied: As Bob is about to pick on Alice's use of "Me and Carol", she tells him to shut up about grammar and focus on what really matters.
• Discussed: "I understand the importance of proper grammar, but some people seem to like correcting it at times where bad grammar should be the least of their problems."
• Conversed: While watching the scene in Straight, Ellis the viewer says, "Bob just showed Alice that he cared more about grammar than about her. I hope she dumps him."
• Implied: Whenever someone asks Alice why she dumped Bob, one of the reasons she lists is "he picked on my grammar at inappropriate times" (Bob is never shown doing it).
• Deconstructed: Alice feels that Bob doesn't take her problems seriously and starts hating him for it.
• Reconstructed: Carol calmly tells Bob that his grammatical corrections often come at inappropriate times. He learns to focus on what matters and uses his pickiness to become a good proofreader.
• Played for Laughs:
  • Bob falls for Correction Bait.
  • Bob recites reasons not to date Alice. His friends are indifferent to the claims that Alice does drugs, drinks a lot, is a criminal, and cheats, but become incredibly shocked when Bob ends the list with "and she told me to shut up when I said that 'your' and 'you're' are not interchangeable."
• Played for Drama:
  • Bob picks on Alice's grammar because he actually doesn't care about her at all, and her incorrect grammar really was the first thing he noticed in her statement.
  • Bob's constant picking on others' grammar is a part of his attempt to ruin their self-confidence.
• Played for Horror: Bob kills Alice gruesomely for her grammatical errors and is shown to enjoy it.

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Back to Grammar Correction Gag

You wrote a sentence fragment and forgot to put a period at the end of the sentence to boot.

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