MEDFORD, OR—Following the public relations firestorm that has been building over the last several years, the national organization for people who are concerned with proper grammar has been forced to rebrand itself.
Members are often known by the term, "grammar Nazi," in reference to the National Socialist party in WWII Germany. The historical Nazis were known for their rigid adherence to their ideology, never questioning, and cruelly forcing others to bend to their will. Grammar Nazis are called such due to their strict and single-minded focus on English grammar, their willingness and even desire to publicly correct others' grammar, and their well-known resistance to disagreement.
However, with the continual media coverage of fringe white-supremacist groups, many of which also use the name "Nazi" or "neo-Nazi," those who hold grammatical consistency and clarity sacred worry that they are being lumped in with hate groups.
Juan Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Grammar Nazis said at a press conference, "Hate is not in our vocabulary. Naturally, in this instance I am using a rhetorical tool, which should not be misunderstood as having been meant literally. It is not that we hate people who spew out the English language without so much as a moment of forethought. We simply disagree with them in ways that are far more eloquent and cogent than they could ever hope to master. We wish to further distinguish ourselves from groups who hate others for trivialities such as skin color or nationality, while maintaining our disdain and loathing of those who metaphorically butcher what separates us from the animals."
The press conference included a request to now be known simply as the Grammar Police, as Hernandez noted that they will often verbally "beat" people into compliance with their ways of thinking, but that it is only against offenders rather than a specific demographic.
"We come armed not with Kevlar and firearms," stated Hernandez, "but with proper punctuation and sentence structure. It is not our role to write the rules of the language, but we will enforce them to the full extent permitted."
Members of the press were allowed time for questions, but Hernandez berated the first question for ending in a preposition, which caused the rest of us to lower our hands and stare at our shoes until Hernandez just left.
Comments