Grammar Girl here.

I'm Minyeon Fogridi and this week I have a funny story I dug up from the 1920s about

Charlie Chaplin's horrible grammar and a meaty middle about a phenomenon that linguists

call S-backing.

That's when people pronounce words like street and strip as street and strip.

And finally a shout out to a featured listener.

And now onto grammatical celebrity gossip from the 1920s.

In 1927, Charlie Chaplin and his young wife, Lita Gray Chaplin, were his famous as Ben

Affleck and Jennifer Garner are today.

And when they divorced, Lita dished to the press about Charlie's horrible grammar.

Yes, his grammar.

In tabloid tones, the San Jose evening news duly recounted dueling stories of just how

dumb the divorcing partners could make each other look.

After a scandalous three-year marriage to Lita Gray Chaplin, she was under age and pregnant

when they wed.

Charlie Chaplin told the world that his bride was, quote, not intellectually satisfying,

unquote.

And returned the spurned Lita to the San Jose evening news that the two had tried to

learn Latin and French together, but couldn't because Charlie had such a poor grasp of grammar.

The writer, Dan Thomas, reported that, quote, Charlie Chaplin may have been a pretty fair

actor according to the girl wife, now living alone with her babies in the Chaplin mansion

in Beverly Hills.

...