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…
Steven Pienaar
The Everton midfielder, on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, was denied a spot of gossip with assorted local housewives…
Hair salon is close I can’t believe this damn
— Steven Pienaar (@therealstevenpi) March 26, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says: First of all, Steven, congratulations on your team’s progression to the FA Cup semi-finals, and commiserations on your not being eligible to play at Wembley due to the stipulation of the loan agreement between Everton and Spurs. While I permitted myself a smile at David Moyes securing himself another shot at a well-deserved major honour, I look less benevolently upon bungled past participles. I sense that the source of your confusion is the reference in English to a retailer that’s ready for business as ‘open’ rather than ‘opened’; be warned that this is one of our native tongue’s many irregularities.
There is of course always the chance that you were lamenting the hair salon being nearby, but I someone doubt it! Chortle.
Dan Shittu
The Queens Park Rangers defender had some words of wisdom for us all…
Don’t settle for what’s right in the eyes of the world, settle for what make’s YOU happy.
— Dan Shittu (@danshittu) March 26, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says: I’ll tell you what makes me happy, Dan: correct apostrophe deployment.
Emmanuel Frimpong
The young Arsenal midfielder, on loan at Wolverhampton Wanderers, seemed to be taking his first step on the long road towards Mercury Prize nomination…
I dno How Me Making A Song has got to do with my Football.I’m nt gna be playing for 7months not untill Septemper so y can’t I do something I
— Emmanuel Frimpong (@Frimpong26AFC) March 26, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says: Is the song titled “How Me Making A Song”, Emmanuel? If not, then there was no need to capitalize the first letters of each word there. Also, convention dictates that the title would be “How Me Making a Song”; note the uncapitalized ‘a’, and yes ‘uncapitalized’ is a word, at least according to Merriam-Webster’s Third Unabridged. Intriguingly, ‘uncapitalized’ is listed as an existing adjective, but ‘uncapitalize’ is not listed as an existing verb! Crazy old world we live in, eh?
I shall concede, though, that many popular music artists do choose to stylise their song titles so that ‘small’ words are capitalized similarly to their ‘big’ word brethren. There’s no accounting for mavericks, Emmanuel.
Mikael Forssell
The Leeds United striker indulged his whimsy with a playful dig at a team mate…
Weather is unreal in Leeds! Going to exercise in the form of soccer this afternoon…then gonna start the new book by Paulo Coelho, Aleph
— Mikael Forssell (@MikaelForssell) March 26, 2012
Btw sitting in @robbierogers car going to training and I can say this with good conscience: he is the worst driver in world!
— Mikael Forssell (@MikaelForssell) March 26, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says: I have no beef with Mikael’s grammar; I’d just like to highlight the fact that a professional footballer not only used the phrase ‘in good conscience’ but also spelt the word ‘conscience’ correctly. I included the Coelho Tweet as further evidence that Mikael is not your average modern player, preoccupied with Nando’s, computer games and the music of Drake. Brazilian literature? What a character! Chortle.
Dean Cox
The Leyton Orient winger was rather enamoured with the present spell of good weather…
What a day too go into training today :) ??
— dean cox (@dean_7cox) March 29, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says: …and what a day it would be to read up on simple homophones. Would it be too much to ask you to spend two hours memorising these?
Phil Neville
The Everton captain was picking his Premier League first XI of the year…
Modric Arteta vorm krul Richards Enrique Rooney Valencia collocini cabaye Gutierrez holt all came close too it was hard to nail XL down!
— phil neville18 (@fizzer18) March 29, 2012
You can’t include players from your own team when selecting your XL!
— phil neville18 (@fizzer18) March 29, 2012
Jermaine Pedant says: That’s an extra large gaffe you’ve made twice there, Phil. Chortle! Right, I best cease the jollity now; Tony Pulis wants Crouchy and I to practise the routine that saw me assist him for a goal against Manchester City at the weekend. We’ve tried it three hundred times since and not one of them has gone in. If it was truly a one-in-a-million goal then it looks like we’re in for a long night before we manage to stage a glorious repeat!
Class dismissed.
Tune in every Wednesday for more from Football Burp’s very own Jermaine Pedant!