PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 27, 2010

I hate the Giants. Yes, I'm bitter. And yes, I realize it was my own damn team's fault for completely forgetting how to hit during the NLCS, but dammit, I'm still bitter.

Not only do I hate the Giants, but I also hate the following: grammar screw-ups and facial hair. I am really not a fan of beards in general (that's ANY beards, not just those on members of rival teams--for example, my appreciation of Jayson Werth went downhill when that small animal crawled onto his face at the beginning of the season and died there). The above article has all three of those things I loathe.

This writer should have said "dyeing" instead of "dying." Although the two words are frequently confused, "dying" really has nothing to do with hair color. I know "dyeing" looks awkward, but really, it's right!

Anyway, I hope the breathtakingly gorgeous very talented Lee, CJ Wilson, Hamilton, Young, and Kinsler kick the crap out of the Giants and their stupid beards. Let's go, Rangers!

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 25, 2010

That's right. The Phillies aren't going to the World Series this year. No, I'm not happy. No, I won't be rooting for the stupid Giants.

But hey, did you guys know that the Phillies have a demon who can potentially play right field next season if Jayson Werth leaves? Maybe he can do all sorts of demon mischief out there, like magically catch balls that should have been homers, or try to possess the souls of the opposing team's batters and drain any I-want-to-get-a-hit energy out of them.

To be fair, Dominic Brown's name has a bit of an unconventional spelling (Domonic instead of the more widely-used Dominic), but seriously, dude's not a demon, and his name's not spelled Demonic. (If he was a demon, you'd think he could've made the Giants go down in flames in the NLCS. So either he's not a demon at all, or he's kind of a sucky one.)

In other news, I'm all about the claws and antlers in this year's World Series. Let's go, Rangers! And for my phellow Phillies phans who need a good piece of news on a Monday after a crappy weekend of sports--hey, at least the Yankees didn't make it to the Series this year, either! ;)

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 22, 2010

Kudos to Roy Halladay for pitching through a freakin' groin injury to get the win against San Fran last night. Seriously, he's amazing, and he has a hell of a work ethic.

No kudos to the dweeb who's confused about the difference between due and do. You don't make due--you make do. *sigh*

LET'S GO, PHILLIES!

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 19, 2010

OK, this isn't actually a grammar error, but it's an error nonetheless. MLB, you are sooooooo 2008! That, of course, is when Pat Burrell was actually on the Phillies. He then went to play for the Rays and then the Giants--that's his current team, which is currently battling the Phillies for the National League championship title. Trust me, Pat the Bat is not currently a Phillie (which sucks for me because I really do kinda miss the guy).

Tonight the Phillies take on the Giants (BILFy McBILF, ie Cole Hamels, vs Matt Cain), and I'm hoping Hamels has his head in the right place and pitches the game of his career. Let's go, Phillies!

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 16, 2010

Do you know what today is? Hmmm? If not, I'll tell you. It's the first NLCS game! Phillies vs Giants! Doc vs Lince! And...I'm gonna be there! Papa Grammarphile and I will be going to the game. I'll be there with my Doctober shirt on, waving my red and white pom-pom, ringing the hell out of my red cowbell, and screaming/squealing ad nauseum. Papa Grammarphile, if he's smart, will show up with a straitjacket and muzzle (kidding...sorta).

Anyway, here's a Phillies/Giants-related error. It's one of my pet peeves--screwing up less vs fewer. The Giants had ten fewer errors than we did, dammit. And I have fewer grammar errors in this post than whoever wrote the above article. ;)

LET'S GO, PHILLIES!

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 13, 2010

Bye-bye, Rays. It was good while it lasted, right? You guys had some awesome and memorable games (like Matt Garza's no-hitter, as noted above), but last night you were kind of crap. Crap on toast, actually. Cute crap on toast, but crap nonetheless. Crap with a case of butterfingers and a lot of crappy fielding.

Cliff Lee of the Rangers outpitched David Price, and those really hot guys in the Texas uniforms the Rangers' sluggers outhit the Rays. It's the first time Texas has ever advanced in the postseason, so I'm happy they're there. I'll be even happier if they can kick the Yankees' butts in the ALCS. I'm also happy just to watch Texas play because they're a ridiculously good-looking team...and after dealing with computer gremlins and screwy grammar all day, a girl needs some eye candy, you know?

So now it's Rangers vs Yankees for the American League championship, and Phillies vs Giants for the National League championship. I'd really like it to be a Phillies/Rangers World Series, and I think I'd die of happiness if that happened and there was, say, a Cliff Lee/Roy Halladay pitching matchup there. But first we've gotta get through the league championships--and then I can worry about which awesome and/or gorgeous pitchers will be pitching!

Thanks to KEVIN for spotting this Rays-related error!

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 11, 2010

You know what's even funner than just being in the playoffs? Advancing (not advnace-ing) in the playoffs to get to the NLCS. Congratulations, Phillies, for making it to the NLCS three years in a row...and for just generally being totally kickass. Between Halladay's no-hitter last week and Hamels' shutout last night, the Phillies are en fuego (or is that phuego? hehe!), and I couldn't be happier. I'm especially stoked since I get to go to the first NLCS game (thanks, Mama Grammarphile--you're the best!) on Saturday. I can't wait to cheer on my Phillies in person--it's gonna be (you guessed it) really, really phun. ;)

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 8, 2010

In my world, today's Hate On The Yankees Day. As a Twins fan, I haven't been very happy with the way the past two nights of Twins/Yankees games have gone. I really thought we could beat the Yankees at home. I thought if the Twins could get one of two wins at home, that the good guys would have this series in the bag.

But no. Now the Twins are headed to New York with a 2-game deficit. If the Yankees win one more game, my Twins are done. And that's a very, very, very sad thought. This team has been amazing all year and it kills me, absolutely kills me, to see another series of playoff games where the Yankees are beating them.

So right now I'm totally in a "I hate New York, I hate living here, I hate Yankees fans, and I hate all Yankees who are not named AJ Burnett" (What? He's gorgeous. I rarely find blonds attractive, but he's the exception!). I'm also in a "I'm really homesick for Philly" mood (as I sit here wearing my Utley shirt under a hoodie--yay, casual dress Fridays).

And about that picture at the top of this entry? The Yankees haven't won 28 World Series championships. They've only won 27. I know this because the the 27th one was against my Phillies. *sigh*

Happy Friday, everyone! Let's go, Phillies (today and Sunday), and let's go, Twins (tomorrow)!

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 7, 2010

First things first: How about that Roy Halladay and his postseason no-hitter, huh? Wow...what an amazing game! As a Philly fan, I'm so proud of Doc. We expected him to pitch well, but as usual, he exceeded expectations. Nobody could have ever dreamed he'd pitch that well. He'd waited forever to pitch in a playoff game, and it was worth the wait--he made history! And it couldn't have happened to a nicer, more humble, or classier guy. If you want to read an excellent article on Doc and his postseason no-hitter (again, just wow), click here to read Jayson Stark's take on it.

Moving on...despite basking in the afterglow of the Phillies' general awesomeness, that Twins/Yankees game last night had me angry and screaming last night and has me hoarse-voiced today. I am so, so sick of seeing this team lose to the Yankees. The Twins have another chance tonight, but dammit, it would have been nice for them to have won the series opener. Anyway...fellow Twins fan CHRISTY spotted this amusing Twins/Yankees-related error. (The really funny thing is that I received the same email blast she did and didn't spot the error myself. Good eyes, Christy!)

I know CC's a beast and all, but surely he isn't pitching every game on the ALDS, right? ;) And for cryin' out loud, if the Yankees are gonna pitch anybody the whole series, why can't it be Burnett or Vazquez? I like the Twins' odds against them better!

Thanks, CHRISTY, for spotting this! Let's go, Twins!

PLAYOFF GRAMMAR for October 6, 2010

Today's the big day! Playoffs begin today! I was up early, actually cooked breakfast (amazingly, the house is still standing), and am hyper as hell. The Phillies and the Twins have playoff games scheduled for today, and I cannot freakin' WAIT to watch. I'm hoping that all the baseball bloggers are right and that the Phillies will easily win this series against the Reds, and I'm also hoping that the Twins can surprise pretty much everybody and beat the crap outta the Yankees at Target Field. (For the record, I think this is the Twins' year, and I think they're going to beat the Yankees. And I swear I'm not saying that because I'm biased toward one of my favorite teams, because Joe Mauer is breathtakingly beautiful, or because I desperately want a Phillies/Twins World Series to happen.)

Anyway. Let's talk grammar! Specifically, let's talk homonyms. This writer really should have used the word fazed, not phased. I don't totally hate this error--after all, this writer may be a fellow (phellow) Phillies fan (phan), and we Phillies fans (phans!) often like using ph-words to describe our team and our players. But in all seriousness, I think the writer just plain ol' picked the wrong word to use. Maybe he's just distracted by the excitement of playoff baseball, though...I can certainly relate to that!

F my grammar.

This little post would have been absolutely charming if it had been written by someone whose first language wasn't English. It would have been adorable and would have made me smile and then lament that English has all sorts of crazy rules that cannot possibly make much sense to non-native speakers, such as when to use "good" as opposed to "well."

But this was written by a native English speaker. One who is clearly very confused about when to use "well" versus "good." If he'd really wanted to use the word "well," he could have said "He wasn't sure how well I'd learned English," and that would have worked. Or "He wasn't sure how well I spoke English" would have also been fine.

What he should have used in the sentence he wrote was the word good, as in: "He wasn't sure how good my English was..." But he didn't. (And yes, that sounds a little awkward, but it sounds a whole lot less awkward than using well there.)

If this person frequently made grammar errors like the one above, I'm really not surprised his teacher thought English wasn't his first language!

MISSPELLING MONDAY--October 4, 2010

You guys should thank your lucky stars this morning, as you've been spared. Spared from what?, you're probably asking yourselves. Spared from lots of baseball talk, that's what. It's October, and I'm officially in playoff baseball mode. That's both a good and a bad thing. It's great because this is where I start really behaving myself due to baseball karma (which, along with the baseball gods, I am sure really exists). This means I'll be bringing donuts to work, rushing to hold doors open for little old ladies, not flipping people off when they cut me off on the road, tipping over the usual 20%, etc. Not that I'm not nice on a regular basis, but during the postseason, I turn it up a notch--basically, I'm Saint Nikki for about a month.

That being said, I eat/breathe/sleep/talk baseball for pretty much the entirety of October. The other night I was actually dreaming of Joe Mauer hitting a home run at Target Field. And the playoffs haven't even started yet. This is just the beginning (muahahaha!!!). Saint Nikki's good deeds will be balanced out by an abundance of screaming, shrieking, "Omigod, [insert the Phillie/Twin/Ranger/Ray's name here] has SUCH A NICE ASS!!!" and the occasional (OK, slightly more than occasional) swear word...or string of swear words (promptly followed by an apology to the baseball gods).

But I digress. Today, you lucky, lucky folks, you've been saved from baseball-related grammar/spelling errors. I'll save those for once the playoffs have started. You can thank BETSEEEE for this--this morning she sent me an error I couldn't resist posting today. She quipped, "This isn't music to my ears," and I've gotta agree with her. A voila/viola error doesn't sound pretty or look pretty on a web page. But hey, the cardigan's pretty cute! (I'm like a magpie in human form--I go for anything that sparkles.)

Happy freakin' Monday, everyone!