Buzz
Imagine this: You thoughtfully craft a humorous comment online, share it, and instantly someone jumps in to fix a grammatical mistake. Many of us despise these sticklers intensely, often comparing them to Nazis. However, not all grammar enthusiasts are arrogant individuals with nothing better to do. Some are genuinely admirable.
10. The Most Detail-Oriented Editor on Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s volunteer editors are a diverse group, including knowledge enthusiasts, flame war aficionados, and at least one ultra-pedant who would cringe at this sentence. Meet Bryan Henderson, a man who despises the phrase “comprised of” so much that he spent eight years eradicating it from the encyclopedia.
Since 2007, Henderson has dedicated several hours every Sunday evening to identifying and eliminating the 70–80 new occurrences of “comprised of” that pop up weekly. Instead of automating the task, he manually edits each page, spending hours every week on this meticulous mission. His dedication has garnered so much attention that he created a 6,000-word page to defend his relentless pursuit.
While his efforts earned him Wikipedia’s prestigious Barnstar editing award, not everyone agrees with his methods. The Guardian argues that Henderson’s logic is flawed, stating that “comprised of” is not inherently incorrect. However, this criticism might seem ironic coming from a publication known for its own typos.
9. A Lone Warrior Against Typographical Errors
Jeff Deck, a former spelling bee champion, grew into what he described as “an editor who can’t turn off.” Annoyed by typos on billboards and signs everywhere, he took action. With the help of a few friends, he embarked on a mission to fix every typo he encountered. His adventure spanned 73 days.
Beginning in New Hampshire, Deck’s team traveled through 33 states, correcting countless typos. Their journey wasn’t without trouble—after fixing a missing apostrophe on a Grand Canyon sign, they were charged with vandalism, fined $3,000, and barred from national parks for a year.
While nothing compared to their first expedition, the team kept organizing smaller typo-fixing trips until 2012.
8. The Sneak Peek
While anyone can create a bot like this and move on to more productive tasks, Stealth Mountain has a dedicated individual who regularly highlights the best replies. They remain engaged, undoubtedly reveling in the delightful chaos their meticulous corrections have sparked.
7. The Group Dedicated to Apostrophe Accuracy
In 2001, retired editor John Richards had had enough. Fed up with apostrophe misuse, he founded the Apostrophe Protection Society to prevent confusion between “dog’s mess” and “dogs mess”. This was no lighthearted joke—Richards was entirely serious about his mission.
Since its founding, the Apostrophe Protection Society has evolved into a prominent advocacy group that makes its presence known everywhere. Leveraging Richards’s strong media connections, the Society often features in British newspapers and has even been spotlighted on the BBC, a platform typically reserved for the most significant and newsworthy entities. The New York Times reports that the Society has even spawned a “militant faction,” with members altering signs to insert or remove apostrophes.
Despite limited tangible successes, Richards’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. He was honored by the Ig Nobel committee for his dedication to preserving, promoting, and defending the distinction between plural and possessive forms.
6. The Grammar Stickler Who Almost Invalidated a Presidency
Since joining the Supreme Court in 2005, Chief Justice Roberts has earned a reputation as its foremost grammar enthusiast. Renowned for his precision, he has even corrected Bob Dylan’s lyrics in legal opinions. His most notable moment came during Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Instead of the standard oath, “I solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States,” Roberts had Obama pledge to “execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.”
The original phrasing included a split verb, akin to a split infinitive, which many believe Roberts instinctively corrected. While this adjustment improved grammatical accuracy, it also cast doubt on the legitimacy of the presidential transition. To avoid the potential invalidation of Obama’s presidency due to a misworded oath, officials administered the oath again later that day—this time, with the proper wording.
5. Ogden Nash’s Crusade Against Poor Grammar Through Poetry
Advertisements often prioritize catchiness over grammatical correctness. A classic example is Winston cigarettes, which in 1954 launched the slogan: “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” Since “like” isn’t a conjunction and shouldn’t introduce a clause, the slogan should have been “Winston tastes good, as a cigarette should.”
While many grammar enthusiasts criticized Winston for the error, Ogden Nash took it a step further by writing a poem on the subject, which was published in the New Yorker. Titled “Like, Unlike,” the poem expressed Nash’s frustration with the misuse of “like.” His clever response reads:
“Like the hart panteth for the water brooks I pant for a revival of Shakespeare’s Like You Like It. I can see tense draftees relax and purr When the sergeant barks, ‘Like you were.’ –And don’t try to tell me that our well has been defiled by immigration; Like goes Madison Avenue, like so goes the nation.”
Even today, it is widely praised by grammar enthusiasts as the ideal retort to a flawed advertisement.
4. The Man Who Fought to Restore the Meaning of “Literally”
The word “literally” is meant to indicate the absence of metaphor, but in practice, it has become a popular intensifier. Sports commentators claim Norwegians are “literally born on skis” or that players “literally (don’t) have a right foot.” For Paul Parry, this misuse was unbearable.
A comedian with a mission (and the financial means to pursue it), Parry decided to literally perform actions people typically describe figuratively. In 2004, he purchased a bike and literally rode from A (a small Norwegian town) to B (an even smaller Nebraska town)—covering 9,000 kilometers (5,600 mi). Later, he literally went to Hell (a town in Norway) and back, making sure to meet the literal residents of Hell. Less dramatically but still impressively, he literally taught an old dog new tricks and literally lost his marbles.
Although his website is no longer active, Parry maintained his pedantic mission until 2013—nearly a decade after he began.
3. David Wynn Miller’s Obsession with Grammar Led to His Downfall
David Wynn Miller, a member of the Sovereign Citizens movement—a group that believes using specific phrases can exempt you from federal law—has taken his fixation on grammar to extreme levels. He argues that the very structure of our sentences is designed to control and enslave our thoughts.
To counteract what he sees as government-imposed mind control through language, Miller created his own “truth language.” While some aspects align with Sovereign Citizens beliefs, such as the idea that hyphenating your name can help you avoid taxes, much of it is entirely unique. Here’s an example:
FOR THIS FEDERAL-JUDGE: David-Wynn: Miller’s-KNOWLEDGE OF THESE CORRECT-SENTENCE-STRUCTURES-COMMUNICATION-PARSE-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR=(C.-S.-S.-C.-P.-S.-G.) IS WITH THE CLAIMS BY THE QUANTUM-PARSE-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR-NOW-TIME-WRITTEN-COMMUNICATION-FACTS
As noted by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Miller’s Correct Language “includes English grammatical terms but doesn’t follow standard grammar rules.” It’s a deliberate effort to craft a version of English with no grammatical constraints. In its own bizarre way, this is as remarkable as any example of traditional pedantry.
2. The Split Infinitive That Almost Derailed a Treaty
In 1871, British and American diplomats convened to negotiate a formal agreement regarding their nations’ relations. The US had protested the UK’s construction of ships for the Confederates during the Civil War, while the British were tired of America repeatedly invading Canada. Both sides made compromises until the British encountered an insurmountable issue: a split infinitive.
While drafting the Treaty of Washington, the British government sent an urgent message. Biographer Andrew Lang recounts that they refused to “under any circumstances” sign a treaty containing a split infinitive. If the US insisted on inserting an adverb between “to” and the verb (similar to Chief Justice Roberts’s removal of “faithfully” from “to faithfully execute”), they would need to find another treaty partner.
Fortunately for future generations, the American delegation agreed, and the treaty was finalized. This decision led to the demilitarization of the Canadian border, the industrialization of the north, and transformed the US and UK from occasional adversaries into close allies.
1. The Imaginary Grammar Stickler Who Shaped Literature
Established in 18th-century Britain, the Scriblerus Club was perhaps the closest thing to a literary supergroup of its time. Its members included Alexander Pope, John Gay, Thomas Parnell, John Arbuthnot, and Jonathan Swift, among the era’s finest writers. From its inception in 1713, the Club focused solely on ridiculing pedantry. To achieve this, they invented a fictional pedant named Martinus Scriblerus and spent nearly three decades crafting his autobiography.
Though intended to satirize “the misuse of learning,” Scriblerus ended up shaping English literature. One segment of his autobiography, where he travels to a “land of giants,” directly inspired Gulliver’s Travels. Another section influenced the creation of The Beggar’s Opera. Scriblerus became so influential that Pope delayed his translation of Homer to focus on the pedant’s adventures. When the book was finally published in 1741, it immortalized the life of perhaps the most impactful fictional pedant in history.
