Perfection?

Stolen from the Freelance Writing Jobs Facebook page.  Yes it does.  Yes.  It does.

A Grammatically Incorrect Observation

I've noticed there's something I do regularly that, by all standards for the English language, is technically 'wrong'.

I start sentences with 'and'.  AND I do it a lot.  

I'd like to take this moment to make it clear that I DO IT WITH PURPOSE.

Know Your Stuff

Remember, you can blame Jeannine for the someecards kick.

Romance

This caught me this past Valentine's Day.  

Word.

Lazy typing trumps bad spelling any day - just sayin'.

Bad Grammar

This amused me. 

For My Spelling and Grammar Enthusiasts....

Nothing wrong here...move along, move along....

Some other Takes on the Exclamation Point

Elaine: See, right here you wrote "Myra had the baby", but you didn't use an exclamation point.
Jake: So?
Elaine: So, it's nothing. Forget it, forget it, I just find it curious.
Jake: What's so curious about it?
Elaine: Well, I mean if one of your close friends had a baby and I left you a message about it, I would use an exclamation point.
Jake: Well, maybe I don't use my exclamation points as haphazardly as you do.
Elaine: You don't think that someone having a baby warrants an exclamation point.
Jake: Hey, I just chalked down the message. I didn't know I was required to capture the mood of each caller.
Elaine: I just thought you would be a little more excited about a friend of mine having a baby.
Jake: Ok, I'm excited. I just don't happen to like exclamation points.
Elaine: Well, you know Jake, you should learn to use them. Like the way I'm talking right now, I would put an exclamation points at the end of all these sentences! On this one! And on that one!
Jake: Well, you can put one on this one: I'm leaving!

Jerry: You're out of your mind you know that.
Elaine: What?
Jerry: It's an exclamation point! It's a line with a dot under it.
Elaine: Well, I felt a call for one.
Jerry: A call for one, you know I thought I've heard everything. I've never heard a relationship being affected by a punctuation.
Elaine: I found it very troubling that he didn't use one.

*Pendant publishing. Elaine is at Lippman's office.*

Elaine: You wanted to see me, Mr. Lippman?

Lippman: I was just going over the Jake Jarmel book and I understand you worked with him very closely.

Elaine: Yes, krhm, yes I did.

Lippman: And, anyway I was just reading your final edit, um, there seems to be an inordinate number of exclamation points.

Elaine: Well, I felt that the writing lacked certain emotion and intensity.

Lippman: Oh, "It was damp and chilly afternoon, so I decided to put on my sweatshirt!"

Elaine: Right, well...

Lippman: You put exclamation point after sweatshirt?

Elaine: That's that's correct, I-I felt that the character doesn't like to be ch-ch-chilly...

Lippman: I see, "I pulled the lever on the machine, but the Clark bar didn't come out!" Exclamation point?

Elaine: Well, yeah, you know how frustrating that can be when you keep putting quarters and quarters in to machine and then *prrt* nothing comes out...

Lippman: Get rid of the exclamation points...

Elaine: Ok, ok ok ...

Lippman: I hate exclamation points...

Elaine: ...ok I'll just....

! ! !

Recently a friend of mine and I were on the subject of exclamation marks (don't ask).  How do I feel about exclamation marks?  Said friend likes exclamation marks.  Said friend thinks other people like exclamation marks.

I don't.  I used to.  At one point in my life.  Now they give me anxiety.  They make me think of a) high importance emails and b) people in my life who regularly press the panic button all too easily (perhaps some of them are the ones sending the aforementioned emails).  In short - seeing an exclamation mark automatically causes me anxiety - pavlov's dog style.  

I have a sneaking suspicion I am not alone in feeling this way.  I do believe Microsoft Office may have marred a perfectly good piece of punctuation.  What are your feelings on the good old exclam?

Another Random Grammatical Pet Peeve

When people say 'minused' instead of subtracted.

I don't know if it's necessarily wrong.

It just irritates me.

A Grammar Rule to Start the New Year....

One of my biggest pet peeves....

Happy New Year all!

Spelling and Grammar Watch....

Continuing on a theme of 'things people don't give a shit about'....

On page 76 of this month's cosmo, the word 'weirdly', is, ahem, 'wierdly' (SIC) spelled....

Wow.

I suppose this is one of the main problems of the written (or should I say 'printed') word....

Misspelled Words....

Ok, I remember once seeing a trivia question about what is the most commonly misspelled everyday word...the correct answer (drumroll please):

DEFINITELY

I DEFINITELY agree with this assessment. I'll give people credit; it is a more difficult word. However. SERIOUSLY. It drives me NUTS every time I see it misspelled. Not because it's misspelled, but because of the alternative choices of spelling.

Definatly (has to be the most common). Definetly. Definately. Defiantly (different word but based on the context of the sentence, I knew what they meant...). Definitly (so close, but yet, SO far).

I am, secretly, a grammar snob, but I try not to be outward about it 1) because I find grammar snobs obnoxious and b) because then, the second I have the least of typos, I know it's going to be thrown back in my face.

A simple way to remember how to spell this word....it's DEFINITE with an LY on the end. Sounds overly simple, but I never really see definat, definet, etc. People don't seem to have trouble with the root word, so I dunno why it suddenly gets difficult when adding two letters. Anyhow.

Other grammar pet peeves out there? I DEFINITELY have a problem with the you're/your and to/too/two confusions. Any other horrible misspellings that I'm missing?

Did You Ever Notice?

Did you ever notice - sometimes when you're typing via aim/text/gchat/whatever your electronic form of communication of choice - if you accidentally type a question mark - there's no easy way to take that question mark back. Really, unless you ignore the question mark (which can completely change the meaning of the sentence) - the only real options are re-typing the entire statement with the intended punctuation or saying the uber-awkward 'no question mark'. To undo one single unintended keystroke, it takes 16 new keystrokes!

Maybe it's just my noticing, because apparently I find myself needing to reneg on a question mark quite often. I don't know why I find myself in the situation so often, but I do. If anyone can think of an easier/better way to get out of it, you know, please advise.