Sunday, January 16, 2011
Excuse me sir, you seem to have something green lurking between your teeth.
Close your eyes. Wait, do not close your eyes because then you would not be able to read this. Open your eyes. Stare intently at the screen and try to imagine this with me. You are having a conversation with someone you have respected, it's past tense for a reason, and everything is going swimmingly until he or she slips in a sentence that has improper grammar. Now, living in the south has made me immune to these things, but for some reason I realize them more now. I think it is because I receive a daily dose of grammar. Anyways, once you have heard this improper use of grammar, which is much like fingernails on a chalkboard or any sound that makes you want to punch infants, you become so sidetracked that you have completely lost track of what this once respected person is trying to say to you. You are now just staring at him, trying to figure out how he could possibly make that horrible mistake. I may be over reacting a bit about this whole situation, but I believe that when you speak to someone you should make every effort to speak grammatically correct. It just makes you sound more competent. It's kind of like when the person you're talking to has something stuck in his teeth or something on his face. You cannot move past this glaring distraction to give the person your full attention, so when questions are posed you answer with the ambiguous, "Uh huh," or "hmmm interesting," while you are thinking the whole time how you just want to reach up and pick it out. This would, of course, pose a problem if you decided to act on your thoughts. Everyone around you would stare at you in awe as you reached your hand up to the person's mouth to rid your conversation of the distraction that has been so very present. Socially unacceptable, you know, that whole bag. You know what I am talking about. Quit trying to say you've never thought of these things. Grammtical issues in speech really grind my gears, so I figured I would allow the wonderful world of the interweb to be allowed to browse these ideas as well.
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I know it's absolutely shocking, but I COMPLETELY agree with you, my dear. Poor grammar implies ignorance. I will disagree with you on one point, though; I don't think it's necessarily worse in the South. People all over the country make grammar mistakes, but certain ones are more common in particular places. One of my personal pet peeves is when people say "I could care less." GAH! If you COULD care less, that means you DO CARE, at least somewhat! The correct way to express that sentiment is "I couldn't care less." I know that you're going to come pester me and use this phrase as much as possible now that you've read this, but the rant was worth it. :)
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