There seems to be an online community for every conceivable interest these days. Some of the most amusing, in my book, are online havens for grammar nerds. Oh, the squabbling over minutiae! Oh, the factions: prescriptivists battling descriptivists! It’s an anthropology graduate student’s dream come true!
At the same time, it is comforting to know that there’s a brave band of grammarians, scattered across the globe, fighting to maintain some sense of order in the chaotic swirls of English that buffet us to and fro. The great essayist and teacher Joseph Epstein used to say that there is elegance in correctness. I’ve yet to find a better reason to at least think about whether I’m following the rules.
So here is a sampling of my favorite online grammar sites. This list is by no means exhaustive; I only included the ones I think are fun:
My hands-down favorite is The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. Run by Bethany Keeley, a grad student from Athens, Ga., this blog collects and displays signs in public places that misuse quotation marks.
Along the same lines, Literally, A Web Log tracks public misuses of the word “literally.” They’ve found some doozies, though they now seem to be more active on Twitter.
If you prefer your grammar to have a British flair, check out GrammarBlog. I am indebted to this blog for directing me to a lovely rant about spelling and grammar by David Mitchell of That Mitchell and Webb Look. Marvelous.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Grammar Girl, whose podcasts on English language usage (and their transcriptions, if you’d rather read than listen) are clear, accessible, and memorable.
Finally, if you’ve had enough of thinking about words for now, why not play with them for a while? Deep Leap is an online game that asks you to create words from a panel of letters that slowly appear and (if you don’t use them) disappear. Just don’t let it suck away your entire Friday afternoon…
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