You like that title? I do (especially the exclamation points) and I think it's perfect for a March 4th post.
In honor of National Grammar Day (March 4th) I'm wearing the shirt depicted below:
You can pick one up for yourself from Woot.com here.
Much is made of grammar, its uses and misuses and you can draw some very distinct lines between groups: Team Oxford Comma vs. Team Death to the Serial Comma. One of my most visited blog posts was the one I wrote called, Punctuation: Why It Matters and Why It Doesn't second to that is my post on Prescriptive Grammar vs. Descriptive Grammar.
I'm an author, so when it comes to language usage and punctuation, people tend to watch their Ps and Qs around me (and draw assumptions about my ability to play Words With Friends, which I'm not half bad at, but it has less to do with my love of language as it does with a lot of practice at the game).
People who know me like to think of me as an ardent supporter of proper grammar, but my grammar-loving self does these things for myself. I enjoy rolling around in letters and words and the rules to which they subscribe. I think it's fun. I love word games, I love knowing that the word pulchritude exists and how to use it, and wearing shirts that relate to language, and I'm an ardent student of paronomasia but I do these things for me. There's some weird chemical concoction in my brain that releases endorphins when I engage in such activities; but, I wouldn't begin to hold anyone else to the standards I set for myself (except maybe my kids).
I know the difference between their, there, and they're but sometimes my fingers type out one version quicker than my brain can interject. It doesn't mean I'm
Kory Stamper of harm·less drudg·ery · life inside the dictionary, wrote a great post called A Plea for Sanity this National (US) Grammar Day. I highly recommend it.
1 comment:
nice post! I actually hadn't heard that today was the day.
Inklings @ margothovley.com
Post a Comment