High school English teachers in the United States are required to take a solemn vow to help improve their students’ everyday use of America’s nominal mother tongue. And while that doesn’t mean delivering a lecture on every arcane rule of grammar (who versus whom, for example) each time it is violated, dogged vigilance is required for certain basic statutes.

No educator wishing to stay sane can correct every student error; setting young people straight on the difference between “should have” (“I should have had a V-8”) and “should of” (“It is never OK to use the phrase ”˜should of’”) would by itself send most part-time grammarians into early retirement. Since becoming an unofficial deputy in Education Nation’s Grammar Police 11 years ago, I’ve tried to discharge this particular responsibility judiciously, but on certain occasions, I just can’t look the other way.

There is no need to say or write things more than once. Anyone offering a nominal piece of persuasive writing beginning with, “In my personal opinion I believe that”¦” gives the impression he or she hasn’t yet figured out the rest of us realize everyone’s opinion is personal and further, if an opinion is indeed yours, you obviously believe it!

I cringed recently when a bright and attractive young person informed her classmates and I of something which had been happening for her “whole entire life.” Fortunately one of her peers spared me from reacting inappropriately by responding, “Well, duh! Your whole life is your entire life!”

On a recent Saturday morning, I witnessed an egregious example of superfluous word usage while standing in line at the post office. Ordinarily in such situations, I’d strike up a conversation with the person closest to me, but on this occasion I found myself staring at an eerily mesmerizing poster on one of the walls. It wasn’t the artwork that initially caught my attention, but the words. “If you have to send $250 to claim your prize, odds are it’s a scam,” it read.

My first reaction was, “Well, duh!” Then I started reading some of the smaller print, a portion of which cautioned, “You could lose to a lottery scam.” Further down, in writing that was tinier still, was, “Don’t be fooled. Playing a foreign lottery in the United States may be illegal and, chances are, you won’t win.” Following that was, “Never wire or send money to anyone, anywhere, who says you’ve won a lottery.”

Wow. If the United States Postal Service is displaying these posters, there must genuinely be a few Americans who actually wire funds to people they’ve never met, hoping to cash in on some bogus get-rich-quick scheme that’s an even surer way to lose money than playing a “legitimate” lottery is. At least those choosing to flush their assets down the toilet by participating in a domestic numbers racket sanctioned by their government are doing so without violating any federal, state or local regulations.

Lottery scam. 

It was like having a particular song get stuck in your head and refuse to leave. My brain kept involuntarily repeating that two-word phrase.

Lottery scam.

The chances of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are one in 175,711,536. Dying from a bee sting is nearly 29 times more likely, says the Harvard School of Public Health.

Lottery scam.

The odds of winning the top prize in the Powerball lottery are one in 175,223,510. That’s less likely than a golfer recording a hole-in-one on back-to-back par-3 holes. The odds of that occurring are around one in 156 million, according to U.S. Hole in One, a company that, I swear, sells “Hole in One” insurance policies.

Lottery scam.

To be fair, not all lotteries have such astronomical odds of winning. For example, the chances of taking home the Grand Prize in the New England Lottery’s “Lucky for Life” game ($1,000 per day for the rest of one’s natural existence) are a far more reasonable one in 13,818,168. The odds of winning some sort of award in Powerball are one in 31; it’s a mere 55-to-1 shot that lottery players can take home a $4 prize. And other, smaller lotteries have far less lengthy odds. In addition, every broadcast or print lottery ad always urges participants to “play responsibly.”

Understanding how legalized gambling works ultimately helped remove that ubiquitous two-word phrase from my head. I realized that as a certified English teacher, the term “lottery scam” offends me for the same reason I’m sensitive to phrases like “wealthy socialite,” “hairy ape,” “ruthless dictator, or “generously endowed Hooters waitress;” they’re all redundancies.

Or to put it in words some of the more alert folks in my classes might, “Well, duh! A lottery is a scam!”

— Andy Young teaches English at a high school in York County. He is currently trying to deduce what the odds are of his winning the “Lucky for Life” jackpot if he never buys a ticket.