Football Burp’s very own Jermaine Pedant enjoys nothing more than strolling back and forth in his professor’s gown, casting scholarly gazes over his fellow professionals’ online scribblings.
Each week, he homes in on a few choice instances of common grammatical failings and raps on them repeatedly with his disciplinary cane until we’ve all jolly well learnt to treat the Queen and her English with the utmost respect. Read on for this week’s lessons…
Eden Hazard
The Belgian attacker caused a right old stir by finally announcing his destination on Twitter…
I’m signing for the champion’s league winner.
— Eden hazard (@hazardeden10) May 28, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says… For the money Chelsea are paying for you, I just hope your passes aren’t as misplaced as that apostrophe! Although the Champions League could theoretically be stylised with an apostrophe at the end of ‘Champions’, thus denoting the plural possessive, it is in fact officially punctuation-free. This is perfectly acceptable insomuch as it is a league comprised of Champions – well, at least for the sake of this argument – but in any case it most certainly is not a league belonging to just the one champion, as implied by your apostrophe placement. What kind of competition would that be? Chortle!
Jody Morris
The St. Johnstone midfielder was shocked by Monday’s Panorama expose on fascism in Poland and Ukraine…
Erm..think ill swerve the Euro’s…how on earth is this tournament going on in these places.
— jody morris (@morriskid) May 28, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says… You think you’ll swerve the Euro’s what? I assume you were referring to something belonging to the official currency of the eurozone, and I’d love to know what that something is. Educating with feigned ignorance is my forte.
Darren Huckerby
The Norwich City legend was similarly taken aback by the BBC documentary…
Looks like I’ll give the Euro’s a wide birth then #Panorama
— Darren Huckerby (@hucks6dh6) May 28, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says… I shall choose to overlook the inappropriate apostrophe this time and instead ask what on earth a wide birth is. Is it a reference to cervical dilation? If so, I imagine you’d do well to give it a wide berth. Chortle!
Joey Barton
The outspoken Queens Park Rangers midfielder was hypothesising about the root cause of his favourite Bond villain’s rage…
My #favbaddy in the Bond series has got to be Jaws. Understandably angry with those steel knashers. Must of been murder brushing his teeth.
— Joseph Barton (@Joey7Barton) May 28, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says… You must have been bored when you wrote that, young Joseph! I’ll let you off ‘knashers’ on account of the fact that it would appear to be worming its way into our language through patois. Languages evolve and change, but a world in which everyone uses ‘must of’ instead of ‘must have’ is a world I don’t want to live in. It’s pretty much my equivalent of the Planet of the Apes.
Dexter Blackstock
The Nottingham Forest striker…er…
Does anyone grow grapes in the garden?????#randomquestion
— Dexter Blackstock (@dexblackstock23) May 29, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says… Dexter, unless you wrote down a number of different questions and picked one out of a hat, this cannot be described as a ‘random’ question. It is unorthodox, maybe even absurd, but it is certainly not random. Good luck with the grape-growing, by the way – comfortably my seventh favourite fruit, grapes.
I best be off for a spot of sun before the day’s out. Class dismissed!