World of Weird Al Yankovic

Someone already guessed that Al would note the serial misuse of "literally" as a Word Crime. What other crimes against English will he likely point out? I'm hoping he touches on "ironically", as that one gets misused almost as frequently as "literally". (See: Morrisette, Alanis). He might do the "fewer" vs. "less" rule, just based on that Vine he posted some time ago.

Also, for the video, there's the (slimy) bit towards the end of the Blurred Lines video where they spell out "Robin Thicke Has a Big D" in balloons. I bet Al does something in his video reminding us of a capitalization rule for a common word that often wrongly gets spelled without a capital letter. I'm blanking on what that example could be, but something like " '[The Word]' Has a Big ___".

(Or maybe even funnier, the reverse rule using a word that people wrongly capitalize that doesn't need to be capitalized. (" '[The Word]' Does NOT Have a Big ____!")

mrmeadows wrote: Also, for the video, there's the (slimy) bit towards the end of the Blurred Lines video where they spell out "Robin Thicke Has a Big D" in balloons. I bet Al does something in his video reminding us of a capitalization rule for a common word that often wrongly gets spelled without a capital letter. I'm blanking on what that example could be, but something like " '[The Word]' Has a Big ___".

That's perfect! Hmm. My first thought when I read that is "What words do people tend to forget to capitalize? From my experience, I see the words "mom" and "dad" done incorrectly. When they're used as a name, they're capitalized, but otherwise not. That would be great if the wall said, "Dad has a big D" or "Your dad has a small D". I don't think he'd be that edgy, but it'd be hilarious!

As for the types of errors, I was wondering about that. Will it be more grammatical errors (adverbs vs adjectives, less vs fewer, etc) or word meaning errors (literally, ironic) or a combination of both? I'm hoping for both.

I'm curious if he'll do something interesting with the "What rhymes with Hug Me?" part, though he did touch upon it on Twitter.

Marko_The_Odd wrote:I'm curious if he'll do something interesting with the "What rhymes with Hug Me?" part, though he did touch upon it on Twitter.

Link please? I missed that.

Bruce the Duck wrote:

mrmeadows wrote:That would be great if the wall said, "Dad has a big D" or "Your dad has a small D".

That's actually very funny (on a couple of levels)! Probably would work best if he showed BOTH of the above in subsequent shots, to help illustrate the distinction. (And get an extra double-entendre laugh!)

Marko_The_Odd wrote:I'm curious if he'll do something interesting with the "What rhymes with Hug Me?" part, though he did touch upon it on Twitter.

He almost has to, as that's one of the more infamous (and stupid) parts of that song. Got me as to what he'll do with it, though.

I hope he does "less vs. fewer" too, per his short grammar videos from a while ago, though that and some of these other grammar rules brought up here might take some time to explain well.

As I listened to the original, one line that caught my ear for a change was "It always works for me" toward the end. I think he could keep this line in there if he uses something like a memory tool - I before E is a bad example, but imagine him singing something like "remember ___ / It always works for me-ee..."

Also, for the longest time I though Thicke saying "It's in yo nature" was "Insinuate ya" So that particular word would be nice to hear in Word Crimes, however it works into the theme.

What can he do for the "Everybody get up!" said throughout the song by I think Pharrell?

(Edited for grammar because I don't want to be the one with poor grammar in the Word Crimes thread.)

CharlesNelson wrote:I hope he does "less vs. fewer" too, per his short grammar videos from a while ago, though that and some of these other grammar rules brought up here might take some time to explain well.

I don't think he'd have to explain the grammar rules, but rather just point them out. It worked well enough the way he did it in CBNC.

I was thinking I wonder if he'll touch on common mispronunciations as well, such as "different" or "nuclear".

Bruce the Duck wrote:with "Blurred Lines" right behind

As catchy as it is, it's hard to say Blurred Lines is a good song given its decidedly pro-rape message. To be clear, this is different from the usual debate we've had about whether a song can be objectively bad. Setting that aside, since the song explicitly advocates raping women, I can't say I'm a fan.