Every now and then, I’ll switch on closed captioning, just to see what displays.  I just watched an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, the one called “Citizen’s Arrest,” in which Gomer arrests Barney for making an illegal U-turn.  In one scene, Opie tells Gomer that Barney got angry and resigned as deputy.

Here’s the exchange:

GOMER: You say Barney quit? He really quit?

OPIE: Yep.  He’s off Pa’s force.

But in the world of the hearing impaired, closed captioning turns Opie’s line into this:

Yep.  He’s off Paw’s force.

Paw?

I wonder if the captioners ever write things like “bear necessities” or “bale someone out of jail.”  Has a hearing impaired person been forced to endure reading of someone putting clothes in a “drier” instead of a dryer, or a man giving his fiancé a one-carrot ring.

It wouldn’t surprise me.  The hearing impaired deserve a copy editor, too.

In yesterday’s grammar section of Newsblues, an online newsletter for the TV news industry, resident grammar expert Mrs. B points out that dictionaries list the word dove as the past tense of dive.

But that doesn’t mean much.

The past tense of dive, as in “Sam likes to dive into the pool,” should be dived, not dove.

• INCORRECT:  He dove in.
• CORRECT: He dived in.

That is, at least, according to the The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage and The AP Stylebook.

So why would a wrong word be in the dictionary?  (Remember, most of them list irregardless, too.)

Mrs. B says:

“That’s because dictionaries often reflect colloquial usage (which may be substandard) as well as standard usage.  Standard usage is for you as a professional user of the language.”

And most of us, at least every now and then, want to know how to sound professional when we speak, right?

So the next time you hear someone whine, “But it’s in the dictionary,” remind them that when it comes to poor grammar, that’s still no excuse.

As you probably know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, the use of due to instead of because of is one of my grammatical sore points.

The rule is that if you write a sentence that uses the phrase due to but you can substitute the phrase because of and the sentence still makes sense, then due to should go because it is being used incorrectly.

That, to me, is simple enough to understand. But the other day, I found a better explanation that points to the other side of the coin: when it’s actually acceptable to use due to.

If you can substitute caused by and the sentence makes sense, then you can keep due to.

So here are some examples:

• WRONG: John was absent due to illness. (Because of works here.)
• RIGHT: John was absent because of illness.
• WRONG: The victory was bittersweet due to the coach’s death earlier this season. (Because of works here.)
• RIGHT: The victory was bittersweet because of the coach’s death earlier this season.
• RIGHT: John’s absence was due to illness. (Caused by works here.)

The formal explanation — the one most people care nothing about — is that due to is only correct when used as an adjective phrase. When used as an adverb phrase, it’s wrong.

In the first example, “John was absent due to illness,” due to modifies the verb was, and when a phrase modifies a verb, it’s an adverb phrase.

In the last example, “John’s absence was due to illness,” due to modifies the noun absence, which makes it an adjective phrase. So it’s accurate.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day.

Patrick is an Irish name that became famous because of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Patrick was a man, of course, and Patrick is a male name.

Patricia, it should go without saying, is a female variant of Patrick. Patty is a nickname for Patricia; Patty is the feminine form.

If you want to abbreviate St. Patrick’s Day, it’s St. Paddy’s Day, not St. Patty’s Day: Paddy is the masculine nickname for Patrick.

Most seem to know that once it is mentioned, yet just count how many people try to wish you a “Happy St. Patty’s Day!”

Mrs. B, the grammar enthusiast over at the TV industry website Newsblues, (subscription required) recently posted an article about little phrases that sometimes go awry when people try to use them after hearing someone else use them first.

Here are just ten of the more interesting ones, with the butchered version first and the corrected version second. Would any of these trap you?

• baited breath, instead of bated breath
• died in the wool, instead of dyed in the wool
• for all intensive purposes, instead of for all intents and purposes
• he’s just a gopher, instead of he’s just a go-fer
• hone in on, instead of home in on
• poured over a document, instead of pored over a document
• shoe-in to win, instead of shoo-in to win
• the dye is cast, instead of the die is cast
• tow the line, instead of toe the line
• wet my appetite, instead of whet my appetite

The one of these I see most often is “for all intensive purposes.” It ranks right up there with “sufficive to say” instead of “suffice it to say.” Sufficive isn’t even a word.

Not that it’s ever stopped anyone before….

For the benefit of those of us who haven’t quite decided to give up on the English language and stubbornly cling to the rules of grammar:

Please forget that you ever heard the word myself.
Do not use it. Ever. (Unless you review a grammar guide first.)

Otherwise, you’re using it incorrectly. I promise.

If I see one more photo caption somewhere that is labeled along the lines of “Jane and myself,” instead of “Jane and me,” I might have to go ballistic.

It’s one of those words, unfortunately, that many use to make themselves sound like they know more than they actually do. (Just like the way film students use the word juxtaposition at every possible turn while only about 4% actually understand what it means.)

We all know that internet messaging creates a set of abbreviations so that people can convey thoughts faster. The most famous of these, I suppose, is LOL (laughing out loud) to express one’s amusement. Some people try to make that a lot more complicated with a ROFLOL (rolling on floor).

Some abbreviations seem unnecessary to me. A good example of this would be NE, which, when read as letters, is a “shortcut” for any. But any is only three letters long to start with: do we really need an abbreviation for a three letter word? How lazy can we be?

Last night, I encountered kewel. Rather than just typing cool, which is a four letter word with only three different letters (which makes it almost as quick to type as any would be), someone took the time not only to misspell it but also to add a letter.

I think all these cell phones and blackberries are turning people’s minds to mush.

Back in high school — yes, I actually remember that far back, thanks — I had an English teacher who once told a classmate that something he had said had just made her ears “tingle with disgust.”

Mine have lately. I get this way almost every time a human has an unpleasant encounter with a life form of the animal persuasion.

Yesterday, in the waters off Isle of Palms, two different people, a 10-year-old and a 30-somthing-year-old, got a reminder the hard way that when one wades into the ocean, one is walking right into the home of animals that can sometimes pose a danger. To be more specific, their legs became temporary gnawing toys for what is almost certainly a shark of some description.

Local news media were quick to report the situation, and during various live shots and taped reports, I’ve heard that unfortunate choice of wording that I hear every time there’s a bite involved. I’ve heard this blunder at every station I have ever worked for, and plenty of others that I haven’t. The little number goes something like this:

“…when he was bit by a shark…”

If you can’t tell what’s wrong with that sentence, it’s probably to your advantage to read up on your grammar. The rest of you, surely recognize immediately that it should have read, “was bitten.”

Bitten, of course, is the participle form of bit, which means that while the shark bit the person, the person was bitten by the shark and beachgoers could run the risk of being bitten by sharks as well.

I was sitting in my office at good old Channel 37 when I heard one reporter too many say it incorrectly. So I sent an email to the newsroom — they’re probably sorry I know how to email all of the newsroom employees with a single click — reminding them of this basic principle of grammar. One of the anchors, who later admitted to wanting to jump through the camera upon hearing another reporter make the same mistake, thanked me for reminding our colleagues.

Grammar is a big part of communication. Bad grammar from a reporter or anchor makes them stop communicating, because the listener gets so distracted by the error that he or she stops listening for at least a couple of sentences while shaking their head at the blunder.

Something will bite someone again one day. Perhaps sooner than later. And I’ll be ready with my memo…and my finger over the send button…again.

Apparently, there are still some people who have managed to dodge news that this Saturday night is the time to adjust your clocks forward one hour.

Daylight Saving Time hits a few weeks early this year. And with that schedule change comes the same old grammar problem.

Remember: hold the S! It’s Daylight Saving Time, not Savings, because it is “saving daylight.”

(And while you’re at it, please check the batteries in your smoke detectors.)

Some group attempting to promote itself as authorities on English are circulating fliers urging regular Joes out there to remove the extraneous word, “like” from their speech.

Another one depicts a young man who says he was in what appeared to be a perfect relationship until he told his beloved, “I like, love you.” He then claims that she started laughing at him and never called him again!

But even though I agree with the sentiment, and wish that more people would stop forcing needless words like “like” into what they’re saying, I suspect this little advertising blitz is all some kind of prank.

If there really was an Academy of Linguistic Awareness, they’d probably spell their own name correctly!

Via Miss Cellania.com.

It’s time for a grammar gripe.

Magician David Blaine appeared in an ABC special during which he attempted to break a record for holding one’s breath under water. His goal: nine minutes. His accomplishment: slightly more than seven minutes.

I didn’t see the show, but I did see its unfortunate title: David Blaine: Drowned Alive.

One cannot drown while dead, so “drowned alive” is redundant. And drown is one of those words that means the worst-case scenario: if someone drowns, they have died. Anything less requires a different word choice.

Recently, I saw a wire story about a group of injured firefighters. The first line went something like this:

Six firefighters were injured when they were electrocuted by low-hanging wires.

If they were electrocuted, they were far more than injured. Like drowning, electrocution means a fatal outcome. The firefighters were injured when they were shocked by low-hanging wires, but since none of them perished from the shock, they weren’t electrocuted.

I once was reading something that a friend wrote, and came across a phrase that made me laugh. She had written a piece of dialog in which one character accuses another of being “star-craving mad.” I suppose the image the character must have had in mind was someone who ran outside barking at the sky like a hound dog.

I’ve always been amused by those little phrases like “for all intents and purposes,” (not “for all intensive purposes”) which lead to aural misinterpretations because they’re usually only heard, not seen. It doesn’t help matters that there’s a novel called “Star Craving Mad.”

But for the benefit of anyone who wants to describe someone who is crazy, make sure you replace “star-craving mad” with “stark raving mad,” a phrase that has been with us since the 18th century.