The grammarian in the Corner Office

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick answered questions at some length about expanded gambling, property taxes, health care and other thorny topics during an online chat today on the Boston Herald website.

But he gave perhaps his tersest, most pointed response when a reader asked about a seemingly less controversial subject: spelling and grammar.

"These questions seem so canned," a chatter calling himself "Sam" complained to the governor at the end of the chat. ".... everything is spelt perfectly and he is always address correctly....this is not how bloggers ask questions.... we don't conform to punctuation or grammer..."

"Sam, I don't blog a lot," the governor wrote. "But I was an English major, so I can't help but try to get the punctuation and grammar right. Deal with it."

Sam wasn't the first reader to broach the subject. Earlier in the chat, another participant, this one with the handle "DemsScrewU_Again," wrote: "Is this going to be all softball questions and canned answers?"

"Pulleeeze!" the governor wrote. "The answers are coming slowly because I type slowly. Otherwise, I will let the partisan blog name go."