Wednesday, July 09, 2008

I am at here

Awhile back I posted a fine lecture on punctuation and usage, populated by our friendly neighborhood zombies. Today we continue that tradition by taking on one of my all-time pet peeves:

[Two hapless victims are running down a dark alley, pursued by a hungry zombie]
Hapless Victim: Hey Bubba! Where are you at?
Hapless Victim #2: I'm over here! But don't end a sentence with a preposition.
Zombie: [chomps into Victim #2, who clearly has the juicier brain]

OK, so George Romero has nothing to fear from me.

Getting back to the point: Knowing how to use prepositions correctly will make you more appealing to zombies. No, wait. I mean, Using prepositions correctly will make you sound more educated and make me less likely to roll my eyes and grit my teeth when you talk. For example:

Well-Spoken Hapless Victim #1: Where are the zombies?
Well-Spoken Hapless Victim #2: They're right behind you!
Zombie #1: [Chomp]

Victim #1 doesn't need to add "at" to the end of the sentence! You wouldn't respond, "I am at here," would you? Repeat after me:

"Where are you?" is a complete sentence!

p.s. Did you notice that there's a second error in the first example above? "Hungry zombie" is redundant. They're always hungry.

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