I don’t know why or how or when it happened, but at some point during the last couple of years, this strange science fiction show converted several of my close friends to its die-hard fandom. I wouldn’t mind or really take much notice at all were it not for the fact that, apparently, a fundamental characteristic of a true “Doctor Who” fan is the compulsion to never shut up about it. (I say this, of course, with the utmost respect and affection for my “Whovian” friends. Love you guys.)

The first time I ever heard of the show, it was part of a riveting conversation among acquaintances regarding a topic of paramount importance — celebrity crushes. One guy took center stage, boisterously professing his love for David Tennant (the star Doctor himself) with a passion whose magnitude could be matched only by that of the incomprehension behind the blank stare he received from me in turn.

“Who?” I asked, sadly unaware of the awful pun I was making.

“You don’t know who David Tennant is?!” he sputtered with the few cubic centimeters of air left in his overworked lungs.

“David who?” I repeated with an edge of concern for his physical health. Came his incredulous reply, “Tennant! David Tennant! As in, the tennants of religion!”

Needless to say, after this introduction, “Doctor Who” and I did not get off on the right foot.

In his exasperated frenzy, this poor soul had confused two very different words: tenet and tenant. What he was attempting to reference were the tenets of a religion: its belief system, doctrine or principles. But what he accidentally actually conveyed to me was that somewhere, some religion was renting out its spare bedrooms to people — for how else could it have tenants?

I can forgive this boy his mistake, however, for three reasons. The first is that the only consequence of my misunderstanding and confusion was that, upon my arrival at home, I had to withstand the silent judgment of the Google “Did you mean…” for my inability to correctly ask the search engine to find pictures of this mysterious actor. The second is that I acknowledge that the sheer ardor with which this kid loved David Tennant may just have been enough to render him nearly incapable of coherent thought.

The third reason, however, has always been the most comforting to me, if the least plausible. When I think about (and subsequently balk at) the unbelievable atrocity of confusing two words with such disparate meanings, what most calms me is the idea that perhaps he was not attempting to clarify a last name but, rather, was referencing the “Doctor Who” following as a belief system itself. Perhaps this fandom has come so far as to have self-established as a legitimate religion that enjoys replacing traditional language with terrible Doctor Who-specific puns, thereby explaining the substitution of “Tennant” for “tenet.” Yes, I tell myself in a soothing voice while refusing to acknowledge that I am making absolutely no sense at all — this must be the case.

I know that I may have offended some people here with my wild exaggerations and Whovian blasphemy, but I’d be lying if I said I was sorry. I recognize that it’s possible that from here on out I should be glancing backward, checking for murderous fans behind corners desiring retribution for my heresy, but I don’t really mind — after all, as my friends often tell me, it is always a good idea to be on the lookout for extra shadows anyway.

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And Gretchen Wieners is one smart gal. She understands that you can’t just ask people why they’re white, she knows that cousins and first cousins are the same thing and she will never forget that in girl world, you can only wear jeans or track pants on Fridays.

While she may know the rules of feminism, however, she is definitely not aware of the rules of grammar. We could pass off her mistakes as humor in girl world, but people make these errors on a regular basis in the real world.

We can learn from some of her awful violations of grammar rules.

1. “OK, look, if I was wearing jeans today, I would be sitting over there with the art freaks.”

That may be the case, but Gretchen is not wearing jeans today. Because her idea (of her wearing jeans today) is contrary to fact, she should have used the subjunctive and said, “if I were wearing jeans today …”

2. “Irregardless, ex-boyfriends are just off-limits to friends.”

Sorry, Gretchen: “Irregardless” is not a word. Here is the definition of “regardless,” according to Oxford: “without paying attention to the present situation; despite the prevailing circumstances.” This is usually what people are going for when they say “irregardless.” If “irregardless” were a word, it would mean the exact opposite of what people actually use it for.

3. “Maybe she feels weird around me because I’m the only person that knows about her nose job.”

Here, Gretchen has misused a pronoun. A person is a “who,” not a “that.” Technically, Gretchen’s not exactly incorrect in this case, but she’s not correct either. According to the Purdue OWL, while “that” and “who” can be used when referring to people, “who” is preferred when speaking about a particular person in the formal language.

While the Plastics may not be interested in using formal language, the rest of us really should be.

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Along with the many other questions I had at the end of the episode, I wondered why Betty used “forthcoming” instead of “forthright.” Was it a grammatical mistake? Was the difference in definitions I assumed to be correct a product of recent decades and Betty’s vocabulary a result of painstaking research done by the writers of “Mad Men”? Were my definitions wrong?

My definitions were wrong (mostly). Upon further research, I have learned that the definition of “forthcoming” is not limited to just impending events. “Forthcoming” can also mean “responsive” or “outgoing” (according to Merriam-Webster, which even cites “forthright” as a synonym). However, where “forthcoming” can mean both “impending” and “frank,” “forthright” can only be properly used to describe the latter. A tiny distinction — but, like most grammatical rules, it’s one that can make a huge difference.

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From my understanding, the lecture aimed to draw parallels between vision and sentence structure to illustrate the importance of context in interpreting visual information. The lesson I took home, however, was that headline-writing abilities are extremely important — otherwise, one may erroneously suggest that certain teachers are particularly abusive or that several foot doctors are unnaturally tall. Perhaps that’s just my way of convincing myself that my job at the newspaper is completely relevant to psychology and cognitive science studies, but that sounds like a personal problem …

In any case, that last headline really speaks to me.

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Ignorance of obscure grammar rules is one thing, but silly mistakes like this are nigh unforgivable. Penguin Books, you appear to have very little respect for someone you hail as “one of the great writers of the twentieth century.”

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I was elated. I had wanted to intern for a major newspaper for years, and, with the Post’s offer, my dream appeared to finally be reaching fruition.

I soon discovered, however, that my travails were far from over. Attaining the internship was the easy part. Infinitely more difficult was searching for affordable housing in a suitable location.

After some immeasurable quantity of time spent sifting through the bottomless abyss that is Craigslist, I began to lose hope. Suddenly, however, I encountered a favorable listing: Someone was offering a furnished studio apartment in Dupont Circle for only $1,395 a month.

Unfortunately, the posting’s content led me to look elsewhere — and not solely due to the actual price:

Unsurprisingly, I have no desire to live in a specious room. While I will never ascertain why, exactly, the room is specious — as my dear poster declined to include pictures — I can certainly conjecture.

Perhaps the balcony is the only existing part of the room, with the remainder being a mere but well-fabricated facade. Perhaps the room does, in fact, exist but possesses qualities that are mathematically infeasible.

More likely, of course, is that my dear poster is simply in need of a copy editor. I would be happy to offer my services in exchange for his apartment, and there’s nothing specious about that.

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If I were to tell one of these candidates that I am a disinterested voter, I may get a look of shock or dismay. Often, the word “disinterested” is confused with its similar-sounding relative “uninterested.” Both are often taken to mean an unengaged person or someone who just doesn’t care. However, while those descriptions represent someone who is uninterested, “disinterested” means nonbiased. Where an uninterested voter would be someone who does not care about the elections, a disinterested voter would be one who is interested but does not align him or herself with a certain political party or organization. Confusion over the two terms may stem from the fact that “disinterested” used to mean what “uninterested” means today. However, in terms of the current definitions of the words, I am a disinterested voter all the way. Uninterested? Never.

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Every city has similar tourist bait: location-specific grammar quirks that show up on Urban Dictionary instead of in Merriam-Webster’s. In San Francisco, one “rides BART,” not “takes the BART.” “Hella” is to be used only as an adjective.

Around campus, Tele-BEARS is the personified villain of the Cal school system. Use of the third gender pronoun “ze” is taken in stride. To say you want to “hit the stacks” is relevant only to our own Moffitt Library and would likely be met with confusion on any other campus. We at The Daily Californian refrain from using either “chairwoman” or “chairman” but instead adopt the genderless metonym “chair.”

The point is that grammar and vocabulary are certainly not as simple as a set of fixed and universal rules set by uppity nitpickers. Both grammar and language are dependent on arbitrary factors like location or even popular culture (YOLO, anyone?) Grammar’s purpose is to provide language with clarity and specificity, and language changes with use.

Our ability to change language by using it correctly or incorrectly imbues every one of us with a certain responsibility. In 2003, University of Edinburgh linguistics professor Geoffrey Pullum coined the term “eggcorn” in reference to a person who misspelled the word “acorn.” An eggcorn is a phenomenon in which a person mistakenly substitutes a word or phrase for words that sound similar. Eggcorns are very much like puns but are unintentional mistakes that have found their way our collective lexicon. For example, many accidentally say “The Notebook” made them “ball” instead of “bawl,” that they “wrecked” havoc instead of “wreaking” it and — perhaps most egregiously — spell “voila” as “walla.”

Do your part. Practice safe syntax.

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So, naturally, I decided that there was only one thing to do: avoid the problem entirely by mentally retreating to a better time.

The procrastinator in me was pleased with this idea and immediately began scrolling through old pictures. Happy memories came flooding back: baking cookies during winter break, seeing old friends for New Year’s, the novelty of a new semester, the excitement of karaoke night for my sorority’s bid day …

And then, I ran into this:

Well, apparently, I looked to the wrong place for peace of mind and an escape from reality, as bad grammar is antithetical to both of those things. Back to reality it is.

“Could of”? Really? For as long as I can remember, this particular written error has occurred with outrageous frequency. Someone somewhere is probably insisting that he “would of done it” if he had time. Elsewhere, excuses are likely being made: “I could of done better.”

The crime against language here is simple: These individuals have erroneously substituted “of” for “have.” In actuality, one would have done something. One could have done better. The contractions “would’ve” or “could’ve” are equally correct.

Unfortunately, the error continues to propagate, but it’s easy to see why. In spoken language, “could of” and “could have” sound painfully identical and therefore are likely to translate incorrectly into the written word. Misspellings and incorrect usage often occur as a result of auditory ambiguity, after all. Furthermore, as an individual exposed to an abundance of karaoke in her 20 years, I can certainly vouch for the fact that karaoke lyrics often need a good copy edit. In the end, it’s almost understandable …

But then again, why am I making excuses for the individual responsible for this atrocity? That person could have done better.

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1. Seasons

Unless you are referring to the Four Seasons, there is no reason for seasons to be capitalized. Therefore, we are on spring break, not Spring break. (Definitely never Spring Break, for which there is no justification.) And there is no such thing as a Flu Season; flu season, on the other hand, seems to last year-round.

2. Holidays

Let me clarify that the names of holidays are capitalized — Christmas, Easter, Independence Day and the like. The word “holiday” itself, however, is usually not. The third Thursday of November can be called Thanksgiving  or the Thanksgiving holiday, but it is not the Thanksgiving Holiday. Similarly, any greeting card wishing anyone “Happy Holidays!” is grammatically incorrect.

3. Geographical directions

The Eastern Seaboard, West Oakland, the South. All of these are correct. But then all of a sudden, we don’t capitalize the “southern” border of the United States, and the sun sets in the “west” instead of the “West.” (Incidentally, the sun does both, but we are usually referring to the former.) Just remember that the examples listed first, in which directions are capitalized, denote specific geographical regions. This is pretty much the only case in which north, south, east and west are capitalized.

4. Miscellaneous…?

If I myself sound confused, it is because I am. And I think other people are, too. This is the only reason I can come up with for why a flier might suggest I check out the “Amazing Sunset” from a certain hiking trail; it may also explain why someone would suggest I join a “Community Service Club.” The errors stem from an assumption that if a word is A) naming something, whether the proper name or not, B) an event, proper name or not, or C) it just looks right, it ought to be capitalized. Ummm, no.

My tip for capitalization in general is that if you are confused and cannot come up with a distinct grammatical reason for capitalizing something, then don’t. After all, some grammarians even call random capitalization a capital offense.

Come on. Appreciate the pun. Do it.

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