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THE MORNING CONSTITUTIONAL EXPLAINS SUBJECT VS. OBJECT

PROPER GRAMMAR COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE

Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

We're probably all hurtling towards a future where grammar is dead and all human communication takes place in emojis and snapchats, but, for now, the distinction between subject and object in a sentence still matters. Example:

Oft-injured Florida receiver Andre Debose tossed someone into a window on Saturday night.

versus

Someone tosses oft-injured Florida receiver Andre Debose into a window on Saturday night.

In the first, factually incorrect sentence, Andre Debose is a miscreant and a troublemaker and well of course Urban Meyer recruited him. In the second, Debose is just someone who happens to have a real dick for a friend. (Note that the subject/object distinction does not particularly change things for the window.)

This isn't just pedantry. Imagine if that same mistake had recurred throughout the story. Guns would be firing people at SUVs, and you'd be all "wait GUNS can fire people now this totally changes that bumper sticker I saw the other day!" It'd be chaos, and you'd lose all sense of what actually happened.

So remember: practice proper grammar, or you will usher in a terrifying world in which inanimate objects come to life and exert their will upon us. Thank you, and Go Ga(is thrown through screen door)