Welcome back, FF friends and fans. The Grammar Cop hopes you’ve had an error-free week, because she herself did not! Take a look:
- PRINT AD (in THE SUBURBAN): “Calling all superheroes – That means you! Featuring a surprise line-up of impactful guests that will inspire and entertain.”
- WASHINGTONJOURNAL.COM: “Despite the violent crowd …, [Lee’s] family issued a stern warning against invoking their forebearer’s name in defense of the abhorrent and racist acts.”
- THESURBURBAN.COM – BLOG: “In Los Angeles, she greeted my friend and I and opened a lot of doors for us in terms of places to visit.”
And the corrections:
- Do you like “impactful”? THE GRAMMAR COP HATES IT! In the online dictionary I use, the entry reads as follows.
“Impactful:
adj. Usage Problem
Having a significant or powerful effect.
Usage Note: The word impactful rankles many people. Even though the -ful suffix was historically productive, yielding helpful words like eventful, bountiful, wonderful, and helpful itself, many view impactful as an affront to the English language, perhaps because of its association with the jargon of advertising and business. In our 2015 survey, 77 percent of the Usage Panel found the sentence This software will allow you to create impactful and original imagery to be unacceptable. Using this word in your speech and writing will be undoubtedly have a great impact, but probably not in the way you’d like.”Me again. You have tons of legitimately lovely synonyms from which to choose. Please don’t use that “impactful.” Ever. Thank you.
- “Forebearer” isn’t a word either. What is it with some people lately? Is it Make-Up-Words-You-Feel-Like-Using Week? Certainly you clever people know that the right word is forbear. Forebear is acceptable too. It means ancestor.
- “She greeted my friend and I” is incorrect. Would you say “She greeted I”? No, you would say She greeted me. Therefore if you add my friend into the mix, you should say my friend and me. (They are the objects of the verb, greeted – if you feel like getting a tad technical. 😀 )
That’s it for this week, I hope this post has been impactful for you. No, I mean, effective. Or… inspirational. Oh, what the heck, have a look here.
Crossed Eyes and Dotted Tees 
I am extremely sympatheticful to your desiressness for properful grammar. You show such great forbearance of these faux pas that I suspect your forebearers were tolerant people, indeed. Please join me, myself and I for coffee at your earliest opportunity. 🙂
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Thanks for the chuckle, even if it made me a wee bit nauseated. (and there’s another word that could be discussed…)
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I am feeling a tad nauseated now myself… 😀
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LOL!!
Coffee? You mean covfefe, don’t you? 😀
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I stumbled at the incorrect words in the first two examples. I patted myself on the back. When it comes to objects after “for”, I harp on that one with my grandsons. At least once a week I caught them both making mistakes. I told them to leave out the first object and say “for I or for me”? Gets them every time. They wince and correct themselves. A few days later, they make the same mistake. Is there no permanent fix???? I wish there were a DNA repair for it.
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Alas, I know of no “permanent fix” for grammar brain freeze syndrome. Perhaps the 100th reminder will take! LOL!
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I don’t think I have that much time. One grandson has gone back to college, and the other one will leave next week.
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TOTALLY agree on impactful. UGH. And we’re starting to see it a lot! Reminds me of how Nero Wolfe hated hearing the word contact used as a verb…obviously that one was a losing battle. Since it’s being rather widely used, we may just have to get used to it. But oh, yes…it rankles!
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I mean, it just *sounds* wrong!
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I gotsed nauseated reading today’s blog post. MagickMermaid’s sympatheticful desiressnesses were quiet impactful on my constitutionalness. And dayuntoday wants to disgust being nauseated? Oh the intestine fortytude! I will have to let Anne Mehrling no that if she comes accossed a DNA repair kit, the foist person she should foist it upon lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Dee Cee.
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Yore poste maid mee feele evin moar sikk.
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