1 c4n h4s sp4gh3tti n0w?

Every office has at least one of 'em. Their tribe is despised, but essential. They are the keepers of red pens and the wielders of dubious eyebrows.

He or she is the cubicle despot in the corner who adds and removes your commas and apostrophes with seeming whimsy. She who speaks at length on prepositional phrases and compound modifiers. He who loathes your passive voice and visibly winces at your clumsy use of "it's" for "its."

I speak, of course, of the savage grammarian. And despite my loosey-goosey use of ellipses and a tendency to begin sentences with "and"... at my day job, I happen to serve as one of those go-to grammar golems.


I would have loved this book so much when I was nine. I coulda been an even bigger know-it-all in my fourth-grade homeroom class.

Imagine, then, my delight as I discovered that grammar goddess Lynn Truss, author of that English-usage gem Eats, Shoots & Leaves, repurposed that book for kids and recently published a sequel with a food-themed title: The Girl's Like Spaghetti.

I know this is only a very loosely food-related post today, but I just wanted to express how pleased I am to know that in an age of nonstop phone leet and i can has cheezburger, kids still have some fun options to help them learn how the language should actually be used.

After all, isn't it much more fun to break the rules when you know which rules you're breaking?