Still from YouTube



“Weird Al” Yankovic is back with a vengeance this week, releasing a new video every day to celebrate the release of his new (and possibly last) album, Mandatory Fun. Yesterday he debuted the Jack Black- and Kristen Schaal-featuring video for “Happy” parody “Tacky,” and this afternoon he unveiled the video for his Robin Thicke parody “Word Crimes.”

As the title suggests, it’s a take on grammatical and orthographic blunders of all sorts set to the tune of 2013 megahit “Blurred Lines.” And apparently Mr. Yankovic is quite a prescriptivist. Let’s examine a few of Yankovic’s Rules of Usage.




“Less” vs. “fewer”

Still from "Word Crimes"



“Your participle is dangling”



As Strunk and White note, “A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.” Otherwise, you risk calling yourself “dilapidated”:

Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap.




“No X in espresso”



This misspelling is so common that it has its own Wikipedia page, but most writers know better:

Still from "Word Crimes"



True, though the image throws shade at Alanis Morissette (“rain on your wedding day”), and even Alanis has a defense:



3. Of a situation, event, or outcome: cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations; …