Don't be stupid, be a smarty. Come and join the Grammar Nazi party.

Following the advice of my well-meaning mother, I recently took a proficiency test for an accounting position for an unspecified public sector agency in California. Frankly, I haven’t so much as thought about the mechanics of accounting for well over two years, so you’d better believe that I got my ass kicked on questions calling for calculations. What was distressing about the word problems was that everything sounded so familiar, but I just couldn’t remember a thing. I studied for that test, too.

But what I found even more distressing about that exam was the section on grammatical proficiency. It honestly appeared as though the grammar section was either written by somebody that speaks English as a second language, or by an English speaker that doesn’t know the first thing about proper grammar. To begin, the opening instructions for the language section read as follows:

For questions 38-45, choose the sentence, that contains improper grammar.

That itself doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the test-taker’s mind about the competence of his tester. But typos happen, so maybe that misplaced comma was merely a forgivable error. Now here comes question 38:

38.
A. Witnesses reported seeing a man and a dog wearing a leash walking down a street near the crime scene.
B. While putting on a pair of handcuffs, the police officer noticed the suspect’s tattoo.
C. (Some forgotten sentence that appeared grammatically sound)
D. (Some other forgotten sentence that appeared grammatically sound)

Answer A seems fine at a glance, but it suffers from a case of modifier confusion. Who is wearing the leash? Naturally, the reader assumes that the dog is the one with the leash around its neck. The sentence structure, however, suggests the possibility that both the owner and the dog have the leash fastened to their necks. You can get plenty anal when it comes to the flexibility of the English language.

Answer B doesn’t look much better because that one contains a glaring example of a misplaced modifier. Contextually, the reader should understand that the cop placed his handcuffs on a suspect. But given the way that the sentence is worded, couldn’t you argue that the cop might have been engaged in some kind of deviant act of sadomasochism when he coincidentally noticed a wanted man with a tattoo?

I know what you’re thinking. “KZ, you are way too anal and way too freaking suspicious for your own good.” You very well may have a point. But just for the sake of being thorough, why don’t we take a look at question 43, shall we? Try finding the incorrect sentence in the next jumble of words.

43.
A. I need to ask a question.
B. Of course.
C. OK.
D. Where?

Pardon me, but were you asking me to choose the sentence containing a grammatical error, or did you want me to point out the only collection of words that doesn’t qualify as a sentence fragment?

The exam authors butchered the English language further, but I don’t want to bore you with more examples. Suffice it to say, a number of the questions between 38 and 45 contained multiple grammatical mistakes. Who in the world wrote those questions? And more importantly, who proofread that portion of the exam and gave it their approval? It burns me up to think that tax dollars were wasted on a sub-literate “grammarian” that walks around smugly believing that “Of course.” is somehow a complete sentence.

Dude, check this out. 1+ 1 = 11, right? Why don’t you throw some tax dollars my way so I can write up some math problems?