The Grammar Police Go out for Hot Dog’s      There was an article in a recent edition of “The Chicago Tribune” about grammar, which proposed the question, “Is it dead?”  Being a graduate student of English, I often wonder the same thing. I find grammatical errors all over the city.    Every day I walk past a sign that advertises hot dogs, with an apostrophe after the “g”.  “What belongs to those hot dogs with their possessive apostrophe?” I snidely wonder.  The other day in the same neighborhood my husband and I came upon a sign that claimed, “No income tax return to big” with only one “o” in too.   He hurried up to the sign, covered it with his arms and cautioned, “Don’t read this sign—it’s only going to make you mad.”             Everywhere I go there are grammatical rules being broken, bent and just stomped on.  Oops, I just ended my sentence with a preposition. Let me try that again…Everywhere I go there are grammatical rules being broken, bent and upon they are being stomped.  Um… yes… there we go.  Newscasters make mistakes everyday.  How many times do you hear a broadcaster say for example, “Hopefully this snow won’t last long?”  Can you find the error with that sentence?  No, it’s not that it’s just plain funny because we live in Chicago—it’s that hopefully is not a word, but how odd would it sound to hear, “I am filled with hope that this snow won’t last long?”  As an audience we would turn up our noses and say, “Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuse me, who do you think you are?”      There must be a happy balance of paying attention to grammar and not paying so much attention to it that we’re speaking as though we came straight from a Shakespeare convention.   I also don’t think we should improve our grammar only because there is a fear of being pulled over by high-brow grammar police like me---er, uh…like I…by   high-brow grammar police like I…such as myself?  Oh, I have NO idea!      I’m fully aware of the fact that my interest in grammar is annoying.  I wish I could have a normal hobby like knitting or stamp collecting.  I not only pay a ridiculously high amount of attention to what people write and say, but I also apply that same scrutiny to everything I write and say to the point where I sometimes spend more time in my head arguing with myself than I do just spitting out what needs to be said.        The truth is, I make loads of grammatical errors too.  Whenever someone asks me how I’m doing I answer the instinctual, “I’m doing good” when it’s actually correct to say, “I’m doing well.”  I get stumped on the difference between further and farther, who and whom, lie and lay, fewer and less—I’m not perfect.  I wish I was.  I mean, I wish I were.   Subjunctive tense. Stupid, stupid, stupid!      There’s a stereotype that proper English is for the uncool and elite.  Although I’ll be the first to admit I’m very uncool, I will say I’m not elite.   I just think proper grammar is a classy tool to have in your belt when you’re presenting yourself to the world.  It beats any fancy suit or designer pair of shoes.      It’s not the end of the world that our language is morphing into more of a rule-free zone.  I guess as long as we’re still communicating effectively we’re not in too much danger, but just do me one favor—next time you’re on your cell phone and you ask your friend, “Where are you?”  end it right there.  Take the “at” you’re itching to put on the end of that sentence and save it for something else.