Friday, September 7, 2007

Grammargirl to the Rescue

So, why "grammargirl" you ask? Since this is an anonymous blog, I can tell you that I am actually a superhero who flies around correcting people's grammar. HA- I wish (is that possible? I should look into that). No, but I am genuinely - ok, I'll admit it - obsessed with grammar. It's not so much that I'm obsessed with diagramming sentences (although doing so would get me more excited than, say, watching football). It's more that, frankly, the poor grammar of the majority of the people in this country frightens the bejeezus out of me.

Perhaps this stems partly (or mostly) from my upbringing, but it is my belief that how you speak communicates your level of intelligence. Would you agree? I think most people would. So, why are so many people ok with sounding (nicely put) unintelligent? The thing that really frightens me is that it has gotten much, much worse over the last decade or so. I can say without exaggeration that I literally cannot go one day without being confronted with atrocious grammar. It's everywhere: at the gym, at work, on the radio and tv, on the internet (this may be the worst of them all!). And I'm not even talking about poor grammar from the perspective of insanely high standards here; I'm talking about people who do not know when to use "me" versus "I" in a sentence. Isn't that one of the most basic things we learned in the 3rd or 4th grade or sometime? I'm talking about people who use "myself" for all references to themselves because they think it makes them sound smarter. It doesn't. The list is truly endless. But, the most flagrant and common culprit - the one that plagues me daily as well as my friends and family members who are fellow grammarians (yes, there are some!) - is the apostrophe. Oh, apostrophe. Remember the day when you were used only to make words possessive? Now you are flung about with such careless abandon like cheap tinsel on a Christmas tree.

True story. I had a friend in college - let's call her Amy - (by the way, in case my fellow grammarians are reading this, I am well aware that I should be using em-dashes with no space rather than hyphens with a space, but the creators of this blog apparently don't know what em-dashes are, so I am relegated to this). Anyhoo, Amy was soooo bad at English that she used to ask me to edit her papers for her and I would have to sit down with her and say, "Amy, I can't even edit this paragraph because it is so bad that I do not understand what you are trying to say." She would explain it to me and then I could edit it.

Today, Amy is a junior high English teacher. Now that I look back on it, perhaps it's my fault. Had I not edited her papers so perfectly, she would have failed English and not been allowed to become a teacher! Dammit.

So, I could talk about this for hours (seriously, ask my husband), but I'll end here. From now on, though, I want to do my little part to try to make the world a smarter place. So, I'm going to end each blog with a grammar tip. Do with it what you will (although, what I hope you will do is pass them along to everyone you know and they will all do the same. Come on, is that asking too much?).
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grammargirl's grammar tip of the day:
How do you know whether to say "me" or "I"? Easy!

Incorrect: Me and Joe went to the store.
Correct: Joe and I went to the store.
Remember: Whether you use "I" or "me" does not change simply b/c you add a second person. You wouldn't say "Me went to the store" would you?

Incorrect: The vacation was good for Rob and I.
Correct: The vacation was good for Rob and me.
Remember this: "I" am too important to go at the end of the sentence.