Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Help, me. Pleas.

   I am a woman who prides myself in knowing the difference between there, their, and they're.  I scoff at stationery stores that hawk their wares as being immobile and I love to brag about the fact that I was the  school district spelling champion in fourth grade.

 There's no two ways about it:  I am a grammar snob.

I feel certain that if it weren't for my lucrative career as a prolific blogger, that I easily could have been a bigwig magazine editor.   Reader's Digest, Highlights, Ranger Rick.  I could take over the world.

But then, I got a reality check.

I was sitting in Emma's classroom sorting through piles of homework for her teacher, when the teacher began a lecture about the proper usage of commas.

I smiled smugly as he taught them about how to list objects in a sentence,  and to separate the city and state in addresses.  Dates, two adjectives in a row,  introductory words....got it.

But then he started babbling on about interrupters, weak clauses, and conjunctive phrases and I realized I don't know beans about commas.   Or grammar for that matter.

Good, buy Reader's Digest.  I'm going back two, third grade, too learn about, conjunctivitis.


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6 comments:

Denise said...

lol! it's not just grammar for me...whenever the kids bring homework home...be it science, social studies, math...I find that they are learning things I've never even heard of, let alone understand.

And...since you are speaking about commas, I know I overuse them, but I love them, and I can't help myself. lol!

Meeks said...

Sorry, can't help you either! My grammer check on my computer is constantly telling me I'm doing something wrong....but I have no idea how to fix it! ha!

Charlene said...

Ha! Me too!! I went into Ethan's class when he was in the fourth grade to learn how to multiply again! They do it so different now that I had no idea how to help him!!

Holly said...

This post really is funny. After four years of studying the English language in college, I have realized that I am still struggling with the rules of grammar.

Steve-Rosanna said...

You're too funny Lara! I am certainly of zero help in this area since I am "old" and the grammar that I learned in the "olden" days obviously no longer applies.

Every other sentence I write in word is underlined in green meaning that something that I wrote offended the grammar checker.

But, like Meeks, I have gotten pretty good at right-hand clicking on the offending sentence and choosing the "ignore once" option.

And let's don't even begin to talk about all the new spelling in the latter days.

Thanks for sharing and for making us giggle at ourselves!

Annette said...

Me no good at grammarr and speling!

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