Grammar Police

 Photo: Amazon

Would you believe that when I first entered college I was an English major?!  It didn't last long, I quickly realized that majoring in English was less about writing and more about lots and lots of reading, and actually being able to understand the English language...ie. Grammar!

I think the above paragraph is a pretty good illustration of why I was better suited for a different major!  I find it almost funny that all these years later I write for a living.  The humor comes from the fact that, although I have a basic grasp of grammar, the subtle nuances of grammatical rules allude me!  I'm what's commonly know as Grammatically Challenged!

I have a vague recollection of learning things like participles, auxiliary verbs, and dangling modifiers.  I swear I did not make that last one up!  But like most things that weren't important to me, I learned them for the brief period that I needed them and then out of my brain they went.  You're not really supposed to end a sentence like I did that last one are you?!

So, now that I'm blogging and kind of swinging without a net, or an editor as the case may be, I've become acutely aware of every little grammatical thing.  I breeze over it about 90% of the time, knowing that most blog readers are just looking for pretty pictures and maybe a few words to tie everything together.

But deep down I know that there are others out there, lurking, scrutinizing every poorly placed preposition and run-on sentence.  Cringing at my flagrant mis-use of punctuation, especially, my excessive use, of, commas!!  Mr. Tide calls me the Queen of Commas, because I really just stick them wherever I feel they look pretty!  Hey, commas are a very underrated piece of punctuation, I'm just trying to give them a little recognition, that's all!

Photo: Amazon

And as far as quotation marks within a quotation or proper semi colon usage...forget about it!  I wouldn't know how to use those if it meant saving my life!  Thankfully I don't think there are many life or death tests based on grammar!

And don't even get me started about leaving comments.  I can't count the number of times that I "think" I've read my comment and checked it twice only to hit the button and see it there on someone else's blog, in bright neon (ok that's an exaggeration!) with the "R" missing from your, or if I did add the R then it as supposed to be you're not your!  There nothing that says, "hey, I is smart" quite like a comment that reads....

I love you curtains!  Your very talented, great job!
Kat :)

Mr. Tide and my children have a very firm grasp of the English language and all of it's unnecessary rules.  People always call rules unnecessary if they don't understand them!  And so I sometimes have to rely on them when something just doesn't look right to me.  My son said he was going to put a sticky note on my computer to help me remember when to use then and than.

Photo: Unknown

It's not that I'm a moron, oh there are days trust me, it's more that I'm always in a hurry.  My hands work faster than my brain so I can't really be held responsible for having superior dexterity can I?!  But I find that when I hit a grammatical roadblock, like when to use whose or whom or who's, I just change the sentence instead!  You may call that lazy, I call it being flexible!

So to all of you Grammar Police, I apologize.  It's not that I like breaking the laws, it's that I'm like an Adverbial Particle in a foreign land who doesn't know or understand the rules sometimes!  And to all of the blog owners whose (or should that be who's...see what I mean?!) comment boxes have been filled with my grammatically incorrect or incoherent comments, I'm sorry.  I would like to blame it on alcohol usage, fatigue, or something else, but the fact is I was just so darn excited about posting a comment and then hitting the send button that I just didn't catch my mistake!

I hopes: everyone of your have a vry nice tuesday?.!,