MORE PEDANTRY: In response to my post on pedants, one reader reminded me of this gem from The Onion a couple of years ago:

William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior
NEW YORK–Stopping for lunch at a Manhattan Burger King, New York Times ‘On Language’ columnist William Safire ordered two “Whoppers Junior” Monday. “A majority of Burger King patrons operate under the fallacious assumption that the plural is ‘Whopper Juniors,’” Safire told a woman standing in line behind him. “This, of course, is a grievous grammatical blunder, akin to saying ‘passerbys’ or, worse yet, the dreaded ‘attorney generals.’” Last week, Safire patronized a midtown Taco Bell, ordering “two Big Beef Burritos Supreme.”

– The Onion (Sept. 20, 2000)

Another reader pointed out I’ve misused “insure” and “ensure,” which my dictionary says are interchangeable unless there’s an actual policy involved. Still another suggested I misused the word “pedant.” Seriously. I’m not making this up.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 14th, 2002 at 9:29 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.