Michael Bloomberg is giving out more career advice: Today he told kids to “speak grammar” to get a job.
Evidently syntax is not the billionaire New York City mayor’s area of expertise.
Mayor Mike, however, continues to make headlines on his weekly radio show heard over WOR. Previously, he insisted that many high school grads would be better off becoming plumbers than going to college. On another recent broadcast, he referred to medical marijuana as one of “the great hoaxes of all time.”
This morning, Bloomberg ironically responded to a caller who was concerned about what is being taught in the city’s school system: “Kids have to learn to speak grammar. If you don’t speak good grammar — English with good grammar — you’re not gonna get the kind of jobs that you want. You can make an argument that it shouldn’t be the case, it’s not fair, whatever, [but] people judge each other by how well-spoken they are. And if there’s a lot of jargon, and if you can’t — double negatives and things like that — they hurt your career prospects.”
Bloomberg continued: “It is an English-speaking country and, like in My Fair Lady , we do judge each other based on how well we speak.”
Added Hizzoner: “People think it’s cute to jive. And it may be for entertainment, but you just still have to have a command of the English language.”
The mayor conceded that he himself is a little challenged when it comes to proper sentence structure. “I could never figure out a dangling participle,” he admitted.
Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Independent, leaves office in 2014 after serving three four-year terms (which included orchestrating a change in the term-limits law).
Since the mayor has already unleashed the food police on the city, perhaps the grammar police could be next.
Do you “speak grammar”? Should the mayor be judged on how well-spoken he is?
