“The Dove Mission for Proper English,

is pleased to announce ….

the Ceremonial Burning: of the following heinous tome

‘English Grammar in Use [Intermediate]’

because …

we strongly feel that there’s something vaguely wrong with ALL KINDS OF STUFF …

and it’s time Y’ALL knew about it.

We realise this rational and measured response is likely to cause great offence to believers in this so-called ‘bible’, but having communed together day and night for more than a few seconds, we have determined that NOTHING WILL STAND IN OUR WAY … except possibly if the following conditions are met:

No more accents – just everyone talk normal and we’ll get along fine

Everyone be made to use capital letters and full stops when they speak

No more mixing conditionals: it’s first, second or third – isn’t that enough?

Immigration decisions to be based solely on the ability to pronounce the word ‘crisps’

HBO launch a 24-hour apostrophe channel

The future perfect continuous passive be given a fair crack of the whip

Everyone shuts up and listens to me once in while

We all agree on what the last P in PPP is supposed to stand for

People stop telling me that they’ve taken the word ‘gullible’ out of the dictionary. I’ve looked several times and I now believe it’s been right there all along

…. and we’ll probably come up with some more stuff if this drags on any longer

However, if these conditions are not met and people keep paying attention to me, BE WARNED – the pre-intermediate AND high-intermediate books could follow. WE MEAN BUSINESS

Rev. Traylor Trashe”

A forum post by the ever excellent mmcmorrow over on ELT World.