Doggone it, Joe! You’ve been givin’ speeches since I was in second grade; I thought you had a better grasp of language!

Just as the Delaware senator made rhetorical blunders in his Springfield speech and his Denver acceptance speech, he made a heckuva lot of errors in last night’s debate.

Biden had a hard time with the word neither, which can lend an air of formality and intelligence — when used correctly. Right off the bat, he said, “I think it’s neither the best or the worst of Washington…” Then, when talking about same-sex marriage, Biden said, “Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage.”

When you have two elements — be they people, ideas or states of being — and you want to negate both of them, you use the correlative conjunction neither-nor. (It’s the negative version of either-or, used when both options exist in the affirmative.) The rule is, neither must always be paired with nor. You cannot say “it’s neither the best or the worst…” You can’t use nor alone; it must follow neither. Also, the two words should remain in close proximity.

That wasn’t Biden’s only blooper. This remark contained two errors:

“No one making less than $250,000, under Barack Obama’s plan, will see one single penny of their tax raised — whether it’s their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax.”

First, no one is singular. (You can hear the word “one” in there, tipping you off.) It cannot be paired with the plural pronoun their. No one at that income level will see her tax raised one single penny. You could also say “his or her,” or that folks in that price range won’t see their taxes raised.

Second, when you’re describing an amount that can be counted, use fewer than, not less than. (That sign in the express lane should say “10 ITEMS OR FEWER,” not less.) Americans making fewer than $250,000 won’t experience a tax hike, Biden pledged.

Speaking of that sticky word than, take a look at this statement.

I haven’t heard how his policy in Afghanistan is going to be different than George Bush’s. I haven’t heard how his policy in Pakistan is going to be different than George Bush’s.

Different takes the preposition from, not than – just as one policy differs from another.

Six-Pack Joe made a few strange word choices, too. For example, he said, “No one can deny that the last eight years, we’ve been dug into a very deep hole here at home with regard to our economy and abroad in terms of our credibility.”

It’s a puzzling use of the passive voice, to say “we’ve been dug” into a hole rather than saying the president (or some other subject) has dug us into a hole.

America, you’ve been punked!