rant for the day

i am a stickler for spelling and grammar.  i know when you should say less and when you should say fewer, the you're/your difference, the their/they're/there difference, when an apostrophe is necessary.  i know not to split infinitives and not to end a sentence with a preposition.  sometimes i am too lazy to figure out how to write a sentence so that it doesn't end with a preposition, but i know it's wrong.  so there.

i grew up next door to my grandma.  my grandma was an english teacher.  my grandma didn't (doesn't) take any shit from anyone, and she didn't take any bad grammar from her grandchildren.  even today, at 90 years old, if you play scrabble with my grandma: be on your toes.  she will play words that you didn't even know existed.

i have little to no patience for people who don't know these differences, or who don't care enough to read over their writing.

my favorite recent grammatical tragedy, by an ADULT: "i don't read very much, but i would have to say the last book i red was a magazine."

there are no words for how quickly i was turned off by this person.  um, you obviously don't read a lot, buddy.  i can tell.

i realize that this fanaticism about grammar may make me a bitch.  i don't care.  sometimes, for fun, i read articles or blogs like this.  just so i know i'm not alone.

when students write poorly, i use my red pen and make big circles around the tragedies.  i don't tell them in particular what they've done wrong.  they're in 12th grade.  they can figure it out on their own.  i don't think they realize how much of a grammar and spelling fanatic i am.  i try to hide my crazy side from most people.  but not you, blog readers.  not you.