Frequently Asked Questions

We of the Self-Appointed Grammar Police are often asked the same questions. To save us the trouble of answering them repeatedly, here are those Frequently Asked Questions, with their answers.

• Q: You guy's think your so clever, but their is a split infinative on you're home page!

  A: We know that.

• Q: Hey! Who appointed you people as the grammar police anyway?

  A: Sheesh. Can't you read? We did.

• Q: You call yourselves the Self-Appointed Grammar police, but you spend most of your time being picky about other elements of language: spelling, usage, the precise meanings of words and even people's personal style choices.

  A: So?

• Q: I heard that when forming the plural of a noun that ends with a vowel, such as potato or tomato, it is correct to use an apostrophe, like this: potato's and tomatoe's. Is this correct?

  A: No. We sentence you to death.

• Q: Is it correct to use an apostrophe when forming the name of a decade or century, as in 1970's and 1700's?

  A: No. We sentence you to be killed, then resuscitated, then killed again. We further sentence you to cut out, keep and memorise Bob the Angry Flower's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots.

• Q: Your site is full of criticism, but you don't provide much help for writers, far less any encouragement. All you do is criticise.

  A: Yup.

• Q: I disagree with one of the points you make. Although the rule you cite is technically correct, most authorities agree that it's pointless to keep trying to uphold that rule when contemporary usage so uniformly flouts it. Language is not a fixed, permanent thing - it is alive, constantly changing and growing. You can't stand in the way of linguistic progress, and you shouldn't even if you could. You ought to embrace changes in the English language as proof of its vitality.

  A: We do not care.

• *NEW* Q: I recently came across your site, and I was surprised to read, ``Increasingly, the error known as a `dangling modifier' is becoming endemic''. Now, I despise dangling modifiers as much as the next anal grammarian, but I also loathe the tendency of even self-appointed authorities to present information without any evidence to support it. Have you performed a study to determine that dangling modifiers are actually becoming more common? Do you have some kind of graph that displays your statistical findings? Or, rather, are you simply practicing the age-old custom of Chicken Little-ism, following the path of countless (pseudo-) intellectuals before you in claiming that the decline of Western society is finally underway?

  A: The latter.

• Q: Your site is awesome! Can I join the SAGP and contribute?

  A: Maybe. Write a sample case file (Offence, Verdict and Sentence) and email it to <incident-desk@sagp.miketaylor.org.uk>. If we like it, we'll be in touch.

  (Alert reader Jane Sales points out that, therefore, not all the Grammar Police officers are Self-Appointed after all, and that some are really Self-Appointed-Grammar-Police-Appointed Grammar Police. This is the kind of pedantry that we admire; Officer Sales is therefore appointed Honourary Constable of the SAGP.)

  (Alert reader Michael Gooding points out that we misspelled ``honorary'' in the previous paragraph. Since meta-pedantry is particularly laudable, we hereby appoint him Honouuurary Constable Sales of the SAGP.)