Check It Out!

(I'm always afraid to write a post like this, lest I make an error and have someone pick on me about it...)

If you're a fan of grammar like I am, I'm sure you've thought to yourself, "Self, I wonder if there is a day set aside for celebrating grammar."  And, lo and behold, there is - today, March 4, is National Grammar Day!

http://nationalgrammarday.com/

So go forth with your red pen and set people straight!  Correct those grocers' apostrophes (or, as I prefer to call them, grocers apostrophe's)!  Tell those people over they're that there use of their is wrong (my goodness, that was painful to write)!  Laugh and/or cringe at examples of bad grammar.  Smile smugly to yourself when you find a typo or an errant comma in the book you're reading.  And most of all, remember that really, every day is made for good grammar.

I love April Fools' Day.  I'm not one to play jokes myself (mainly because I can't keep a straight face!) but there's something about a well-played prank that just appeals to me.  Some of my favorite April Fools' stories:

* Possibly the best-known April Fools' joke of all was a 1957 BBC report about the spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. (You can view the original clip at the BBC website.)  At the time, pasta was far from being an everyday food in Britain, and this unfamiliarity with spaghetti, coupled with the report being shown on a serious news program, led to the BBC receiving hundreds of calls from confused viewers.  (The BBC loves April Fools' Day.)

* In 1996, Taco Bell announced that it was buying the Liberty Bell and renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

* Google has a tradition of announcing a new product or service each April 1.  However, some of these annoucements -- like Gmail -- have been real.  (Also real?  The news on April 1, 2007 that a ball python was loose in Google's New York offices.)

* National Public Radio always has a joke news story on April 1.  My personal favorite was from 2005, when Robert Siegel of All Things Considered interviewed  Vermont maple syrup makers about the dangers of untapped maple trees.