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Category Archives: UMBRAGE!!

Why grammar matters: 50 United States edition

Recently, I’ve been noticing a lot of grammatical errors in publications.  Places where you would think there wouldn’t be grammatical errors.  Or at least, big ones.

The most recent one invovles some KitchenAid documentation.  I think a warranty notice or something.

If you reside in the 50 United States…

If you reside in the 50 United States?  Wait.  There’s more than one country called the United States?  And apparently you have to be a resident of all 50 of them?  So, it’s like a case of dual citizenship, but times 25?  Well, it doesn’t say you have to be a citizen of the country.  Just a resident.  I guess that’s not too bad.

But what would you call being a citizen of 50 different countries anyway?  Being a citizen of two different countries is called “dual citizenship.”  Well, the citizenship part can stay the same, but how about something called 50?  Well, the prefix meaning “five” is “penta-” and “ten” is “deca-.”  I don’t think there’s anything specifically for 50.  So I guess it’s pentadecasomething citizenship.  What would be the proper ending though? I guess I could just use the standard “-ple.”  So, it would be pentadecaple citizenship.

That’s…pretty hard.  Especially since at least one of the United States has that rule about giving up citizenship to other countries when you become a citizen of the United States.  Well, I guess you don’t really have to give up the citizenship of the other countries.  The US just won’t recognize it.  I wonder how that works with extradition treaties.

Btw, isn’t it really confusing to have several countries with all the same name?  I mean, how do you address things?  What about country codes?  The US I live in has the country code of 1.  What about the others?  And how would you designate that on paper?  The country code of United States XII?  You want to send this package to the United States L?  This is so confusing.

Wow…just wow

Have you seen this?  If you haven’t, you should go read it.  It’s ok.  I’ll wait.

So…wow.  Right?  What is the lesson being taught here exactly?  That you should look for a loophole and whine until you get your way?  That consequences shouldn’t really be enforced?  The kid signed the academic honesty agreement, so he knew the consequences of cheating.  Even if the rules ended up being a bit vague, isn’t it still the school’s prerogative to enforce their choice of the iteration of rules?  They were both there.  And if it were unclear, it should have been mentioned when the kid signed it.  What, people don’t read contracts anymore?

Even if they decided that the rules were confusing and that they wouldn’t enforce them to the letter, why is it so important that the kid remain in the honors English class?  The original punishment was to be kicked out of the English class AND out of the IB program AND the cheating would have been put on record AND he wouldn’t have graduated with the IB diploma.  The school lessened the punishment to being allowed to participate in the IB program still with no mention of cheating on his record, but he’d still kicked out of honors English.  This seems like an incredible deal to me.  The key being that no mention of cheating would be going onto permanent record.  Being able to participate in IB still is a bonus.  But the kid’s family rejected it.  They want everything.  What.

I.  Just.  Don’t.  Understand.

But anyhow, the punishment that the parents may have inflicted on this kid may be a lot worse than what they had anticipated with this lawsuit.  Granted, the kid’s name is never mentioned, but his grade and school are mentioned.  His dad’s name is mentioned.  What’s going to keep the admissions department of every college from keeping track of any Berghouses coming out from Sequoia High in a couple of years?  These parents may have screwed their kid over for life.