Grammar Crime Codes
Your key to deciphering Grammar Police radio dispatch calls
Dispatch: “Unit 12, we’ve got a 718 in progress.”
“Confirmed. Suspect has used ‘literally’ for the fifth time in thirty seconds.”
Categories
100 Series — Pronunciation Offenses
101 – Mispronunciation of Common Words
(eckcetera, jewlery, pundint, nukular, Illinois)
102 – Silent Letter Violations
(Illinois, often, etc.)
103 – Stress & Syllable Violations
(misplacing syllable emphasis)
104 – Deliberate Pronunciation Degradation
(slang pronunciations used in formal contexts)
200 Series — Vocabulary Crimes
201 – Improper Idiom Usage
(I could care less, off the bat, quote unquote, etc.)
202 – Wrong Word Substitution
(debauchery/debacle, ordeal/ideal, exuberant/exorbitant, resonated/resignated, old gizzard/geezer)
203 – Confusable Words
(accept/except, advice/advise, affect/effect, lose/loose, than/then, etc.)
204 – Invented or Nonstandard Words
(conversate, irregardless, anyways)
205 – Vocabulary Inflation
(using impressive words incorrectly)
206 – Redundant Expressions
(revert back, descend down, exact same, ATM machine)
300 Series — Verb Crimes
301 – Past Participle Abuse
302 – Irregular Verb Violations
(broadcasted, casted, should have went, tooken)
303 – Auxiliary Verb Violations
(should of, use to)
304 – Incorrect Verb Forms
(suppose to, I seen)
305 – Subject–Verb Disagreement
400 Series — Pronoun Crimes
401 – Pronoun Case Violations
(me/I, us/we)
402 – Reflexive Pronoun Abuse
(myself)
403 – Pronoun–Antecedent Disagreement
404 – Human Reference Violation
(people that vs people who)
(I absolutely love 404. It sounds like “Person Not Found.”)
500 Series — Usage & Style Crimes
501 – Apostrophe Abuse
502 – Quotation Mark Misuse
503 – Word Combination Errors
(every day/everyday, apart/a part)
504 – Comparative/Superlative Violations
505 – Count vs Mass Noun Violations
(less/fewer, amount/number)
506 – Passive Voice Concealment
600 Series — Professional Communication Violations
601 – Text-Speak Leakage
(u, ur, gonna in professional settings)
602 – Unexplained Acronyms
603 – Empty Buzzwords & Filler
(Boom!, smash the like button, etc.)
604 – Internet Catchphrase Overuse
700 Series — Aggravated Grammar Crimes
701 – Repeat Offender
702 – Committed on National Television
703 – Committed by a Teacher
704 – Committed by a Journalist
705 – Committed After Being Corrected
706 – Multiple Simultaneous Violations
707 – Aggravated Assault on Standard English
800 Series — Public Safety
801 – Grammar Facilitating Fraud
(scam emails)
802 – Public Misinformation Through Poor Language
900 Series — PROSE Special Investigations
901 – Historical Investigation
902 – Language Evolution Case
903 – Grammar Cold Case
904 – Linguistic Myth
905 – Viewer Submission Investigation
Dispatch Examples
“Unit 12, respond to a 404.”
“Affirmative. Apostrophe misuse in progress.”
“Dispatch, upgrade that to a 705.”
“Repeat offender?”
“Affirmative.”