Cardiff Council Vs. Pink Floyd
What’s wrong with the video on the right?
I’m not talking about the fact that it’s Pink Floyd (I don’t care what you say, Pink Floyd suck and adding a children’s choir makes it even worse).
I’m talking about the double negatives used throughout the song. We don’t need no education. It even has a green squiggly line under it as I type.
Now, do you think this line is in fact an ironic statement
or a gross dereliction of duty from maintaining linguistic standards through
the medium of prog-rock?
If you’re in the latter camp then you might be interested in
a competition being run by Cardiff Council. Earlier this year they were apostrophe
hunting and now they’re on the hunt for bad grammar in pop.
To win tickets to a special, invite-only comedy event in the city with a line-up of well-known Welsh comedians, simply send examples of lyrical crimes to readingpower@cardiff.gov.uk. Make sure you include the name of the artist and song, the ‘criminal’ lyric and how the ‘crime’ should be put right, as well as your name, school and year group in the e-mail.
It’s not just bad grammar in pop that the council are hunting but also the wrong choice of words, verbs and tenses in songs.
So crank up the radio, whip out the dictionary and show those pop stars what for!
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2 Comments – Post a comment
emb789
Commented 6 months ago - 2nd November 2011 - 13:18pm
The was a brilliant bit in The I.T. Crowd where Roy (one of the main characters) was singing "We don't need no education" under his breath, and Moss (the other main character) shouted at him, "Yes you do, you've just used a double negative!"
CLICdan
Commented 6 months ago - 4th November 2011 - 11:08am