More celebrations

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Today is my sister’s birthday.  I remember that when we were children, I used to be very proud to announce that I was the elder by “a year, a month and 2 days,” so that we were never “twins” at any point.  As you can imagine, I’m less enthusiastic about announcing that now, and she’s not too thrilled with aging either 😂. I wish her a lovely day and a year full of blessings.  She, along with my brother and niece, have headed to the beach today, and I’m a little envious that they’re able to do that. But on my next visit, I intend to spend several days at the beach just to make up for the 3 years since I was last able to be there!  I’ve just been abandoned by the tiny monster, who jumped up on Don to get some attention that he wasn’t getting from me.  I’m being watched by a laser-focussed pair of teddy bear boot button eyes, even as he wriggles for more petting from Don, who had difficulty sleeping last night, and has been dozing a bit all day.  Hopefully he feels better sooner.

I have to confess something that is probably not a surprise to many people.  Poor speaking and writing cause me physical pain.  If I read a text that’s rife with spelling and grammatical errors, it really hurts me.  One friend takes a perverse pleasure in sending me jokes and memes that misuse words like, they’re, there and their or your and you’re or it’s and its.  I know that he “only does it to annoy” so I “speak sternly to the boy” as advised by the Duchess in Alice.  Some of those are so common now as to not elicit much comment but it’s my considered opinion that correct usage is important to not impede comprehension of a text.  I had a conversation with one of the kids a while ago about this.  He argued that if I understood what he was trying to communicate then correct grammar was unnecessary and a waste of time.  I pointed out that poor grammar could cause confusion and if I had to spend too much effort to untangle his intent then I would lose interest, and he could potentially lose funding, or a job or an opportunity that he wanted.  He was persistent (I’ll grant him that) and went into various lengthy explanations as to why it didn’t matter… only to finally contort himself into a logistical knot and concede that confusing “public” with “pubic” would be enough to terminate a communications officer.  (True story, and I’ve kept the posting from many years ago!)

I mention this because I was reading the comments on a news article recently, and the cold blooded murder of language was on full display!  One commenter talked about “loosing the election,” while another said, “your wrong,” (I wanted to ask, his wrong what?)  Meanwhile on TV, someone was enthusiastically complaining that she was, “conversating” (Autocorrect hates that) with someone, and the use of “like” for “said” is another irritant, and as for “Her ask was…” instead of “she asked,” or “her question was,” it’s just a great irritant.  I know that many of these just are my curmudgeon popping out to let people know that she’s still there.  I try hard not to turn into a “grammar nazi,” but I struggle with not correcting the writing of people on the internet.  It was more challenging while I was working in policy… on one never-to-be-forgotten occasion, I returned a 20+ page document to its author with the note, “Our documents are produced in English and French.  I’m not sure what this is, but it’s neither language.  Please correct and resubmit.”  I had a very annoyed coworker who from then on used my name as a swear word, but who never again gave me such a poorly written piece of work!  (I don’t recommend that approach, it’s likely to get HR involved!)   Truly, the writer had just dashed off a poorly written, unrevised piece that was completely filled with spelling and grammatical errors and incomplete, confusing sentences. It was utterly disgraceful from someone who was supposed to be a professional.   I understand, and appreciate, that writing with clear and correct grammar is a challenge for people for whom English is not their first language.  I also know that for many English speakers, writing is a challenge, but honestly!!  Could you please apply the rules that you were taught in primary schools?  How could you manage to graduate even high school and not be able to differentiate “you’re” from “your”?  

Hmm… I think that I should eat before writing, so I avoid the soapbox.  That, and find a way to distract the dictator so I am not constantly trying to type with one hand and protecting my PICC line with the other and trying to pet him with a free hand (which I don’t have!)  I’d better go assume my job of official dog petter… Good night all!