About that ‘dog in the bin’ thing…

Okay, do you remember that Guardian article I was waving about a few days ago?

The Guardian: ten everyday grammar mistakes

Yeah, that one. Well, along with the article there was a picture…

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Yup, that’s the one.

I’ve written the piece, patted myself on the back, gone out, got drunk, come back, gone to sleep… then woke up in the middle of the night screaming, “Christ on a bike! It’s right!”

I’d remembered one of those frayed and faded grammar rules that I picked up in university, but never found a reference to say whether it was real or not. Y’see I think that poster is correct.

As far as I remember the rule goes something like this: the pronoun (in this case ‘it’) refers to the nearest noun (in this case… ‘poo’) which is the  antecedant of the pronoun. (Don’t take my word for it. Check with Grammar Girl.)

But before sticking slavishly to the rules, remember that your writing has two aims:

  1. clarity
  2. not to get laughed at for the wrong reasons.

 

Film review – Captain America: Civil War

 

I’m gonna hate myself for it, but I have to make a direct film comparison here. Captain America: Civil War had everything that Dawn of Justice lacked: heart, humour and humanity. Without the raw, destructive power of someone like Superman or Wonder Woman, and with Hulk missing in action, Civil War had to rely on brilliantly choreographed (and often brutal) action sequences to keep the audience engaged through the whole two-and-a-half hours. On its own that wouldn’t have been enough, but woven through the mass destruction of property and a fairly impressive body count, we had a story of friendship, guilt, sacrifice and betrayal.

captain_america_civil_war

The stoic relationship between the Captain and the Winter Soldier; the confusion of emotion suffered by the Vision; the erosion of friendship and trust between the Captain and Tony Stark; Stark’s loss of faith in himself: it was all surprisingly deep stuff that was as equally gripping as the superhuman wrecking show going on around it.

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