Congratulations to My Daughter

Before the pandemic hit, my lovely daughter was blogging here on occasion. Several of my long-time followers have asked about her from time to time.

The pandemic hit their little family pretty hard. Both she and her wife lost their jobs. It was tough on them, but they both took the time to better themselves by achieving some hard-fought business certifications.

I will not tell the story in its entirety because I hope Melissa will come back and blog herself in the near future. Suffice it to say she found her dream job and has not stopped working on bettering herself.

Her latest achievement was to go back to college and finish her degree. Not an easy feat while working full-time and managing married life with a toddler in the midst of a pandemic.

I am so proud of her for facing her fears and finishing what she started so many years ago. With age comes wisdom and determination.  I love you, my daughter and I am so proud of you.

Check out the article below. I am one proud Mama.

ALMOST ALUMNI

Grammar, Get in Here And Wash Your Hands!

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do for them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

Dorothy Parker

I was once a self-professed grammar nerd. Now, my grammar is not so clean and tidy. What happened? How did I get so lazy?

I suppose I could blame it on social media. Twitter decided we could say all that needed saying in 140 short characters. They tossed punctuation and grammar out the window.

All the fault does not lie there, though. The smartphone helped with the introduction of texting, spellcheck, and emojis. (Did you know there is an emojipedia website and a timeline for the introduction of new emojis?) Why use words when you can say everything with an emoji?

Enter the ‘serial comma’, also known as the ‘Oxford comma’. Since when did grammar become fluid? I am still reeling from the declassification of Pluto as a planet.

I have a copy of The Elements of Style. I rarely refer to it when writing informally. Blogging is informal, so my grammar has followed suit. When I did a search of best books for grammar, The Elements of Style did not always come up in the search results. I was I intrigued by the titles I did see.  Look at this article from Penguin Random House for example:

14 Books for Grammar Nerds

Are any of them in your library?

In school, I loved diagramming sentences. I wonder if I could still diagram a complex sentence. Do English teachers even teach that these days? (Old lady speak.)

I am here to confess my grammar sins.

1. I often start sentences with ‘and’ or ‘but’.
2. My most overused word is ‘that’.
3. I often end a sentence with a preposition.
4. I believe in the Oxford comma.
5. I struggle with punctuation inside or outside a parenthetical phrase.
6. Sometimes I use one dash instead of two for an Em dash.
7. I am sure I was taught to capitalize after a semicolon, but I cannot find proof of that.
8. That old habit of typing two spaces after a period —(remember typing class?) (should that question mark be there?) — was hard to break. How many blatant errors can I stuff in one sentence? Technology advances eliminated the need for those two spaces.

Maybe I will peruse The Elements of Style again as a refresher. In the meantime, feel free to confess your grammar sins in the comments below. Your secret is safe with me. 🤫🤭🤐