Even though I haven't earned any money from this blog....yet...I still consider myself a writer. I have always loved to write...stories, poems, skits, parodies, shopping lists, greeting cards. I guess people attach the element of making money as to what you can call yourself. True, I haven't profited monetarily from these random thoughts of mine, but I feel I am considered at least, a blogger. Come to think of it, I raised three children who became three successful adults, I am considered a mother even though I never earned a fucking cent. I went to college to learn to write-motherhood you learn as you go and you never ever graduate apparently.
Maybe I am not a professional writer, but believe me I have seen a lot of professional "you name its" lately that were anything but professional. So I will gladly dub myself a writer, professional or otherwise. My degree is in journalism and when I snuck a peek at my old school records, my third grade teacher commented that I was a "very good little writer"( I don't know how my size figured in to that.)
I loved writing all though school. In junior high, I had a great but scary English teacher who literally taught me everything I know about grammar and writing. He was a love him or hate him kind of teacher that I loved and am still in contact with. Gotta love Facebook. Whenever I do converse with him, I actually sweat over every word and punctuation mark I use before I hit the send button. He did correct my misuse of a semi colon all the way from Arizona. In my high school drama class- taught by another favorite teacher of mine, we worked on the existential French play No Exit by Satre. It was about three souls in Hell..."Hell is other people" and all that jazz. It was a project for a grade and could only be so long so I rewrote it. Yep re-wrote Satre! Sorry Jean -Paul or should I say Je suis desole- I am just a 17 year old high school senior-but I got this! The arrogance of youth.
Maybe that is, maybe part of it is being a little arrogant- I have something to say, I can say it best and now you will read it.
Maybe it comes from being a middle child -raised in a children are to be seen and not heard era. Or could it be maybe it is just therapeutic- ding ding ding!
I had this realization just this past weekend. My new puppy took off on me while we were on a walk on a long over due sunny day. Everyone was out and about, so off we went. Out of no where something spooked him and he squeezed out of his newly tightened collar (I recently made it tighter since he did the same thing on the way to the vet to be neutered.....hmmmm?) Anyway, in my devastation, I wrote a post on all the social media lost pet sites, again, gotta love Facebook. I wrote, re-wrote, edited and re-edited this stupid "lost dog" blurb and realized, God I'm a writer- which is( if you notice) the title of this blog...well, .kind of!
I, along with the other grammar fanatics in the world are witnessing the end of the English language and the lost art of the written word....it is like Grammargeddon if you will! The way people write these days is absolutely cringe-worthy. My God, spell check people!!! I spell check my name for goodness sakes. Yes, I know a couple of time, things have slipped by me- I believe I wrote the word scholarshop in an email and yes, I stress over it still. I am sure mistakes have been found in my blog and I have been called out on the over use of my beloved periods of ellipsis, (and to them I say ......F dot dot dot.U) We are human and we goof up here and there, but step up people!
It is all over too! My daughter noticed on the Mighty Taco sign, there was the incorrect use of the word you're. We were so disappointed in them - they are usually so clever and right on with their advertising . Don't be all cutesy about fish tacos and then say YOUR hooked. A hundred or two more mistakes like that and we may take our business elsewhere. It is very distressing to see people write your the best or your an asshole- Note...if you are going to insult someone, it loses it punch if it is grammatically incorrect. Could this laziness come from, dare I say, technology? I'm not talking about the sometimes annoying and often hilarious auto correct. ( An invitation to a POOP party is way different than an invitation to a POOL party.) People are using numbers instead of words- convenient ? SURE, acceptable? in a text- MAYBE - in a formal piece of writing?-HELLS NO!!! Gotta Hate Facebook Their, I mean They're I mean There. I said it!!!!
When I worked in the elementary school, we stressed the proper usage of there their they're/ your you're/to too two/who's whose and so on. But these little guys weren't spoiled yet by the social media lingo- or at least I hope they weren't at that age. Now in high school, I look at scholarship applications and essays and I am amazed at what passes for acceptable. Acceptable in the student's eyes- certainly not mine. Lower case i ???- Seriously? How do you even think that's okay? You can't even type it with out the computer correcting it for you most of the time. Misspellings, little or no punctuation which usually means one loooong ruuuun oooon sentence. It makes me crazy- I recently apologized to my hands for having to re type a student's paper-AS IS .
Now not everybody is a writer- I get that. My own kids struggled with that part of school. It was not their forte- but whenever they wrote, it was grammatically correct- I guarantee you that! It is hard to read some one's work and know you can help make it better, but really ethically you can't.
Speaking of ethics- in middle school, my youngest was having a hell of a time with an teacher who kept handing back her writing COVERED in red marks- mostly criticizing her word choice and how it would sound better worded like this etc. Now we all know a 13 year old "voice" is not the same as an adults' It rarely is phrased in the way an adult would put things, but if the content is there and the grammar is correct, then let's call it a B or a C and move on. Paper after paper would come back just cruelly torn apart "say it this way" " use this phrase instead"- the poor kid totally shut down. She called herself a horrible writer ( which she really wasn't- the best of my three) The sad part is that she used to like to write. I know some teachers are tougher on those with some talent, but instead of being encouraging, the constant criticism did just the opposite. So step in Buff State's favorite journalism major of 1982- I will write her next assignment and show that red pen wielding hack a thing or two. So we sat down together in order to make sure it was her ideas and her words and I will put a writer's spin on it- C'mon I have had a blurb or two published in the Buffalo News- I mean I did write for the college newspaper- so let's do this -aaaaand D I got a fucking D!!!. That's when I told my daughter the truth- like any good parent would That teacher must not like you.- because that was a damn good report! D as in Damn good I guess.
Now I don't suggest parents do their kid's assignments-obviously, look how well that worked our for us, but I would encourage good common sense. Like don't misspell words on your resume. I can't tell you how many times while interviewing for positions from teachers to cafeteria staff that I had my mind made up because of mistakes on their applications. Seriously! Also watch the words you choose. An applicant, who was once employed at a deli. wrote that her jobs including waiting on the customers, cleaning the food cases and cutting the cheese.... WHAT ??? you can get paid for that???
Now I hope that people won't be scouring my blogs-past, present and future for errors- I don't mean to sound like a snob, I believe in raising the bar, yet you can also limbo under it in some circumstances. If you are shooting a quick text or email and it is all lower case - no biggie (because all caps looks like shouting) If you are writing something that counts....make it count! Please take my advice because there out their with they're all to quick too judge attitudes and our ready two point out you're misteaks...your welcome.....just sayin'
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