November 29, 2008

Grammar in the World of Fashion

photo grabbed from shadedviewonfashion.com



Exciting news abound in the fashion blog world. Perhaps because of the frenzy sashays and traveling, our bloggers forget their basic grammar.

1. from chuvaness.livejournal.com

Hong Kong ain't like Manila, where if a "minor" celebrity such as Alain Bourdain or Neil Gaiman happens to pass by we all go gaga and stalk their every move.

Chuvaness started well by being consistent in the use of the article a in "a minor celebrity", the conjunction "or", and the verb "happens" -all of these are in singular form. Then, her high heels slip a bit in using the plural THEIR, thus a mishap in the sentence occurs like a wardrobe malfunction.

2. from bryanboy

Everyone including their mother and their dogs are saying she's lost her mojo and she's now lurking in the shadows of her other contemporaries who are lapping up the spotlight but let me tell you, as much as I badly want American Vogue to offer a NEW point of view, Anna's done a damn great job over the years.

Everyone is a singular pronoun and maybe substituted by his/her/it. To use their as in "their mother and their dog" is like a fashion mismatch: they don't go well together. Well, let us not just discuss the errors in the punctuation and word usage right now.

3. from ashadedviewonfashion.com

Today is the last day of the shows. I found it very interesting how Malaysia is positioning themselves to be THE hub in showcasing Asian fashion.

Again, a common error is spotlighted here. Malaysia is a singular noun so the appropriate pronoun should be itself, rather than themselves.

Oh well, sometimes the glitters shine so brightly, people don't mind the grammars at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

*Raising hand* question. Is it acceptable to pluralize grammar? When is it appropriate to plularize something? Please enlighten this confused reader :). Thanks

mountain resident said...

No, it is never acceptable.
The last statement is written tongue-in-cheek (glitters make you forget grammars).

Well, you noticed.