I got a little further, but gave up well before the end. I suppose listing his pet peeves gives him some catharsis, but there's no need to inflict them on us.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I can't open it. Lately our satellite internet, built and operated by the same folks that build the guidance systems for the US's infamous drones, has refused to work. Opening that site has likely led to my bombing a kindergarten in Kuwait.
It finally opened. It's from the formerly respectable Huffington Post.
Being a "peevologist" who's trying to reform, I admit that only half of it seemed absurd. I'll admit to feeling annoyed when I hear "media" used as a singular. But the bottom line for me is that people who can't write or speak a coherent sentence often make waaaaay more money than I do, so I guess it really doesn't matter how one speaks.
The first thing I noticed wasn't the article's content, but the writer's name. The first four letters of his family name mean "nothing" in French. Coincidence? Nah.
I stopped after his first bit. His argument is ludicrous even by peever standards. You can't say "the door opened" because doors are not capable of voluntary action so you must say "someone opened the door".
I'm willing to bet that in his speech he violates this so called rule a thousand times a day.
The door opened, the car drove off the road, the window shattered, the fridge needs to be fixed - it's a completely commonplace and absolutely grammatical usage.
I don't know what other points he makes but I expect they are all as fatuous as this one.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
A quick check of the OED shows "need" with an inhuman subject has been used by such bad writers as Chaucer, Jefferson, Shelley, Shakespeare, Churchill, Scott, Dryden, and Browning.
I'm willing to bet that in his speech he violates this so called rule a thousand times a day.
Remember EB White from Strunk and White? He's a great writer. Although White is a co-author to that stupid Elements of Style book, when checked by Language Log, he broke all of his own rules - in writing and not in speech. Much of it is ridiculous, I agree.
On the other hand, we all have our pet peeves, right? A colleague of mine, very well educated, routinely says, "He should have went." It kills me!
