Introduction

Welcome to The Grammar Snark.

This blog is meant to give me, along with some selected friends, some room to vent our grammar, spelling, and punctuation-related annoyances.

We don't claim to be experts in any of those things, and we will quite probably irritate people on occasion.

Comments pointing out more examples of how the language is being butchered lately are more than welcome. Comments we don't like (for any reason) will be deleted and/or held up for public ridicule.

Ok, now that we've got that out of the way... the first Snark!

"except" does not equal "accept". You cannot "except" an apology.

From Wiktionary:

Accept: Verb

(transitive) To receive, especially with a consent, with favour or with approval.
She accepted a treat. - Joseph Addison
The Lord accept thy burnt sacrifice. - Psalms 20:3
(transitive) To receive or admit to; to agree to; to assent to; to submit to; as, I accept your proposal, amendment, or excuse.
(transitive) To endure patiently.
I accept my punishment.
(transitive) (commerce) To agree to pay.
(transitive) To receive officially; as, to accept the report of a committee.

Synonyms
receive
take
admit

Except: Verb

(transitive) To exclude; to specify as being an exception.
2007, Glen Bowersock, ‘Provocateur’, London Review of Books 29:4, p. 17:
But this [ban on circumcision] must have been a provocation, as the emperor Antoninus Pius later acknowledged by excepting the Jews.

Preposition
except
With the exception of; but.
There was nothing in the cupboard except a tin of beans

With the exception (that); used to introduce a clause, phrase or adverb forming an exception or qualification to something previously stated.
You look a bit like my sister, except she has longer hair.
I never made fun of her except teasingly.

(Error found in the comments following a CNN post about an apology from Sarah Palin.)