(Dummies!)
To you I say: Come ON!
My very good friend – who shares my loathing of people who misspell simple things like, well, "misspell" - how embarrassing! – came up with a nickname for us: Grammar Police. We are warriors of the word. We, too, sat through Mrs. Smith’s middle school lectures on homophones and conjunctions, on the usage of singular vs. plural, and the simple rule of i before e except after c. So why, my fellow mid-20ers, WHY have you not retained these rules?
Fine. I’m a self-proclaimed grammar snob. It’s my numero uno pet peeve. But it’s a pretty benign one on the pet-peeve-spectrum. There are so many tools, you grammar offenders, at your disposal nowadays. You can be über conscientious with the simple click of a button. For starters, http://www.dictionary.com/. How novel! Email providers offer spell check. There are innumerable books and websites (ever heard of a little site called Google?) on the subject.
My very good friend – who shares my loathing of people who misspell simple things like, well, "misspell" - how embarrassing! – came up with a nickname for us: Grammar Police. We are warriors of the word. We, too, sat through Mrs. Smith’s middle school lectures on homophones and conjunctions, on the usage of singular vs. plural, and the simple rule of i before e except after c. So why, my fellow mid-20ers, WHY have you not retained these rules?
Fine. I’m a self-proclaimed grammar snob. It’s my numero uno pet peeve. But it’s a pretty benign one on the pet-peeve-spectrum. There are so many tools, you grammar offenders, at your disposal nowadays. You can be über conscientious with the simple click of a button. For starters, http://www.dictionary.com/. How novel! Email providers offer spell check. There are innumerable books and websites (ever heard of a little site called Google?) on the subject.
To plug one we publish (because really how can I not...you should go buy it, it's pretty great - http://www.amazon.com/before-except-after-Parkinson-Judy/dp/0762109173/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1238423072&sr=11-1ie=UTF8&qid=1238423072&sr=11-1) .
Now I know I'm not perfect. Far from it. I've had the Grammar Police take me to the smack down hotel a few times in the not-so-distant past. I like me some abbreviations, some inventions, some slang, some swears. There are probably mistakes in this here blog. But when technology has made things so goddamn easy for us, how can I not judge you for spelling something wrong? All you need to do is click that little check mark at the top of the screen. So easy!
No dankes! No dankes people who say too instead of to, than instead of then, your instead of you’re! In the whiny voice of Charlotte à la "Set the date! Set the date!" I shall impart these three little gems of wordly wisdom to you: Check the spelling! CHECK THE SPELLING!
Above all else, if there is one thing that I can drill into your brain that Mrs. Smith failed to, it is this: You have to be in it to win it. If you take nothing else from reading this blog while you should be doing your work, it is that you WILL LEARN HOW TO SPELL DEFINITELY. To spell definitely you must be in it, as in definitely. There are no a's in this fine word and never, ever will be. No, most definitely not. Not ever. So stop trying to put them there!
Really, there is nothing worse than poor grammar. I find this perfectly succinct:
So my parting words to you, dear friends and strangers, are simply:
Check the spelling! Check the spelling!
Love it! And the example of the T-shirt is great.
ReplyDeleteoh, american eagle...your to dumb for words!
ReplyDeleteI second your opinions, but this member of the grammar police requests a permanent ending of the unnecessary abbreviations you promote. If I hear Katie Leo and Ri utter "totes" one more time...
ReplyDeleteI kid, I kid. Congrats on the new blog little lady!