In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit?

Oh, HPV awareness ad.... It's not hard to use "less" and "fewer" correctly. Here you go:

If you can count them, you've got "fewer."

If you can't count it, you've got "less."

I have fewer leprosy symptoms than you do; consequently, I have less discomfort than you do.

I not only have less milk in my glass than I did a minute ago, but I also have fewer cartons of milk in my refrigerator than I did before the hockey team arrived.

Express Lane: 10 Items or Fewer. (No, really. It should be "fewer." Every time. Fewer).

His song title "One Less Lonely Girl" is ambiguous -- if it were about one girl who were made, by the ministrations of Mr. Bieber, to feel less lonely, than the title would be correct (although some grammatical authorities might recommend a hyphen to make the meaning clear: One Less-Lonely Girl).

However, I listened to this song. After suffering an acne outbreak, I discovered that Mr. Bieber really meant "fewer"; as evidence, he says, "I'll take her and leave the world with one less lonely girl."

In sum, I now have less respect for whoever is claiming to homeschool Justin Bieber; I hope this advice will result in fewer Justin Bieber fans. That itself should result in fewer cases of HPV.

STANDARDIZED TEST LEARNING OBJECTIVES

"Dear University of Chicago, It fills me up with that gooey sap you feel late at night when I think about things that are really special to me about you," the essay began. "Tell me, was I just one in a line of many? Was I just another supple 'applicant' to you, looking for a place to live, looking for someone to teach me the ways of the world?"

I recently located my own original Dartmouth essay (hiding away in a file box at my parents' house) -- perhaps I'll scan and post it soon. It was a bit cheeky, although I certainly didn't refer to myself as "supple."

This really made me laugh.

First: modifiers. Here are some examples of modifier errors:

Filled with one million tons of trash, the mayor suggested that a new landfill be built.

Running on the beach, my pacemaker went info fits and starts.

America celebrated its bicentennial two hundred years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1976.

In the first example, "Filled with one million tons of trash" should modify "landfill," but is instead modifying "mayor." Ha ha, the mayor is full of trash!

Similarly, "Running on the beach" should modify "I" (which doesn't even appear in the sentence); instead, it is modifying "my pacemaker." Ha ha, the pacemaker is running!

Finally, "in 1976" is a prepositional phrase that should modify "celebrated its bicentennial," but is instead modifying "adoption of the Declaration of Independence." The sentence implies that the adoption was in 1976 and the bicentennial, consequently, in 2176. Ha ha, future time!

Now on to Lindsay Lohan's deodorizing needs, which appear to be profound and multitudinous:

Apparently, Lindsay's deodorizing needs are not only severe, but also very specific: she has dropped a box of deodorant "formulated to combat extreme sweating on her way out of a Rite Aid."

Does she have another variety of deodorant formulated to combat extreme sweating on her way INTO Rite Aid? And another for the DMV? Another for banging on Samantha's door during their love spats? What happens if she shops at a different drugstore? Does CVS offer competing formulations of deodorant for entering and exiting their stores?

So, let's fix it:

The modifier is "on her way out of a Rite Aid" (that's actually two strung prepositional phrases, but let's not split hairs). The modifier should modify "Lindsay Lohan," not "extreme sweating." Here:

"On her way out of a Rite Aid, Lindsay Lohan drops a box of deodorant formulated to combat extreme sweating."

Another perfectly fine option is: "Lindsay Lohan, on her way out of a Rite Aid, drops a box of deodorant formulated to combat extreme sweating."

Sweat away, Lindsay!

I read a sentence in Us Weekly that I wanted to blog about, but then I left my magazine behind in a nail salon, so I don't have the exact text. However, here is a paraphrase of the sentence that set me off:

Jennifer Aniston finally encountered Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face, four years after their marriage ended.

Every pronoun (with a few idiomatic exceptions, such as the "it" in "it's raining") must have an antecedent that matches in number, is unambiguous, and is actually stated in the sentence. A good rule is: If the sentence could be read another way due to its pronouns, and you're using your outside knowledge or making assumptions to know what the sentence means, the sentence is probably grammatically incorrect.

A good example is the sentence, "Mary's mother told her she should do her homework." This is wrong, wrong, wrong on two counts. First, "Mary's" is acting as an adjective -- that is, "Mary" herself is not in the sentence, so, while the pronoun "her," which occurs twice and is possessive, may refer back to the possessive "Mary's," the object pronoun "she" may not. (Subject and object pronouns may not refer back to possessives, whereas possessive pronouns have much less strict rules and may refer back to other possessives or to regular nouns).

But what, really, is the problem with "Mary's mother told her she should do her homework"? We all know what it means, right? Well, sort of. If you said, "Mary's father told her she should do her homework," the "she" would still be wrong, but that's a pretty pedantic point, since the meaning is unambiguous. But in the case of "Mary's mother told her she should do her homework," it is possible to read the sentence as "Mary's mother told Mary that Mary's mother should do Mary's mother's homework," or "Mary's mother told Mary that Mary should do Mary's mother's homework," or even, "Mary's mother told Mary that Mary's mother should do Mary's homework." Most of these interpretations are unlikely or stupid. But the fact that they are possible (whereas they are not with the "father" sentence) means that the sentence is ambiguous.

Standardized tests love to exploit these alternate meanings by using sentences such as, "Ms. Chang angered the Senator by reporting that her company had violated the new environmental statutes." What's wrong here? After reading this far, you've probably inferred that the problem is that the Senator could be female, and that the pronoun is therefore ambiguous. Whose company is it? (If the sentence were in context and we knew the Senator to be male, then this sentence would be fine, just as it is, of course, fine to use a person's name in one sentence and a pronoun in place of the name in subsequent sentences).

Back to Jen, Brad, and Angie. WHO ON EARTH IS "THEIR"? 

Imagine the same sentence reworked, but in a case in which you had no outside information. "A finally encountered B and C, four years after their big fight." Whom would you think had the fight? A and B? B and C? All three of them? If I changed "fight" back to "marriage," you could quite reasonably infer that only two people may be involved, but would that tell you that A and B were the people who had been married?

Let's fix it. One option is: "Jennifer Aniston finally encountered Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face, four years after Aniston and Pitt's marriage ended." Or maybe, "Four years after her marriage to Brad Pitt ended, Jennifer Aniston finally encountered Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face." Or, "Four years after Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt's marriage ended, Aniston finally encountered Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face."

Women want in! To the freaking dictionary, apparently.

Exhibit 2, the closeup:

"Elicit" is a verb that means "bring forth." "Illicit" is an adjective that means "illegal."

Also, the last sentence has a real parallelism problem. Apparently, it should be noted that 1) it's powerful, and 2) used with caution. It should be noted that used with caution.

Did Sarah Palin write this ad?