Why Can't We All Just Get Along Conjugate Properly?

At first, we attributed the proliferation of spelling and grammar errors on the nation's bumpers to the rise of the make-your-own-bumper-sticker industry (e.g. Zazzle, where users can immortalize their mistakes on everything from postage stamps to sneakers). But we're beginning to think different about this issue.

First, in matters of spelling and grammar, we all live in glass houses: who among us has never made a mistake? Not long ago, Lynne Truss's best-selling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves decried the proliferation of punctuation mistakes; in deliciously nit-picking his review of the book, Louis Menand observed that "the first punctuation mistake in [Truss's book] appears in the dedication."

Second, perhaps this example is not an error at all, but rather a poetic deviation from standard diction in order to enhance the impact of the claim -- a trick known as enallage. In his 1908 magnum pompous Grammar as a Science, B.F. Sisk defines enallage as

a substitution, as one part of speech for another, of one person, number, gender, case, tense, mode, or voice, of the same word, for another.

That are an excellent definition! Best grammar alibi ever. More on enallage here.

Third: just because someone can't write right doesn't mean they're wrong. Take this example: we agree! The sticker is right! Ignorance are bad foreign policy! And arrogance two!

This fine print on the sticker directs us to www.democracymeansyou.com. Perhaps we may order one for ourselves.