Role Reboot

How To Lose Friends And Online Dates: Grammar Snobbery Gets You Nowhere

When an earthquake or hurricane, or a biopsy or drunk driver, can rob you of hope or life in an instant, that limits the upside of peerless pronunciation. “You know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’” That line shows up in a JDate profile, from the section where you tell prospective partners what you’re looking […]

‘Good Grammar’ Comes From Privilege, Not Virtue

The hunger to justify underdog grammar details—beloved Oxford comma included—has an ugly side. It can hurt people. A punctuation mark has a fandom. As an editor, I should be giddy. A nuance of language is having its day! But my gut has drawn itself down. I’m talking, of course, about the Oxford comma and those wild sentences that […]