DAY 71 - GRAMMAR NAZI -- yes, I believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Oxford Comma

Among some of the great jobs I’ve had, one of the favorite projects I was able to work on was the Franklin Covey Style Guide. This is a 532-page Style Guide for business and technical communication, and includes document design (including sample business letters and resumes) and instruction on grammar, punctuation, and word choice. I was fortunate to be able to work with quite a few PhDs as Subject Matter Experts and contributors to the project. My job, back in the day, was to make sure it was perfect – I mean, you can’t have a book about grammar and punctuation that doesn’t properly use grammar and punctuation. So I got good at using grammar and punctuation well.  
   But that was 15 years ago, and I’m not quite the Grammar Nazi I once was. Oh, I still cringe when I see published errors – especially on television and billboards (in print, it is unforgivable). And there have been occasions when I have wanted to pull over to the side of the freeway, grab a can of spray paint, and climb the ladder to fix a typo on a billboard. Sure, there are times when I intentionally throw traditional grammar and punctuation to the wind – sometimes for emphasis. Other times because it more closely mimics everyday speech. And sometimes because I don’t want to sound stuck up – (or is it:  up is not the stuck to which I want to sound???)
   I was reminded of this earlier today as I was hunting for a particular videoclip for a training I am writing – and I stumbled upon a hysterical snippet from “The Big Bang Theory” television show (which I adore!) It reminded me how properly using grammar is nowadays often viewed as pretentious. As the daughter of a 3^rd generation Newspaper Editor, correct grammar and punctuation were highly-prized in our home – Dad was incredibly well-spoken, and word games like Scrabble and Boggle were frequently played.
   Although I occasionally use “u” instead of “you” when texting, I’m typically one of those people that spells out complete words and writes complete sentences. I even use commands when dictating to Siri, so that certain words are Capitalized – and dashes and commas are inserted. That’s probably also why I don’t use Twitter – the abbreviationalization necessary to squeeze everything into a Tweet literally would drive me figuratively crazy. Besides, I would seriously struggle with condensing my far-too-verbose thoughts down to a mere 140 letters. Obviously, whoever invented Twitter was NOT an English major.

   And now that I’m back in the dating scene, I have to admit that someone that can write well certainly makes a great first impression on me. Sure, having a nice photo helps, but having a well-written profile can be quite a turn-on.  I will admit that I have BLOCKED a few people from all future contact for having incredibly poorly-written personal descriptions – full of bad spelling, poor grammar, and lousy punctuation (if punctuated at all). I mean, what if I fell in love with someone that didn’t know the difference between they’re, there, and their?  A girl has to have standards, you know. 

   There is beauty in the English Language. I love words – the beauty behind their meanings, the lyrical quality of their sounds, the visual appeal of carefully scrivened phrases. I have long dreamed of having a wall in my home that was completely covered with words and phrases that I love. And if my refrigerator had any magnetic properties, it would be plastered with my myriad of Magnetic Poetry sets. And for now, I will continue to write and write and write. Blogging. A novel. My journal. A note to a friend. Sometimes grammatically correct. Typically properly punctuated. Always correctly spelled. Frequently funny. Perhaps poignant. Invariably from the heart.
   


CLICK HERE TO WATCH THIS SNIPPET
from "The Big Bang Theory" about GRAMMAR