Sunday, October 4, 2009

Stop the Insanity (Ins'anity?)

Sometimes it is so painful to witness ignorance in action.

I realize I am a snob when it comes to grammar. Worse, I'm sure I make my fair share of typos (typo's? typos'? ty'pos?), given that I spend most of my day pounding out emails and instant messages by the hundreds. But dammit--it's shameful when college-educated people (MANY OF THEM EDUCATORS THEMSELVES) cannot use an apostrophe to save their (they're?) lives. Forget the comma, the semicolon, the colon--they are all just instruments of torture. But I think anyone can be taught how to use a frigging apostrophe. It's (its?) not that hard. Here's a quick overview:


Anyhoo....

I found myself suffering another bout of grammar depression just this morning. I was in the drive-up line at Tim Horton's (yes, that's possessive, folks) when I saw a van with this painted on the side:

Fine Touch Window Washing's
248-477-nnnn

Come ON. You had your WORK VAN PAINTED and no one made sure you were SPELLING THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY CORRECTLY? I weep.

Is there a school somewhere teaching that, if a word ends in 's', you need an apostrophe? I really don't get it. When I was a youngster learning how to use these darn little hooks, I sure wasn't bold enough to just splash them where ever. I was careful to ask myself, "is this possessive? Is this a contraction? What are the rules for the situation I'm in?" I asked myself these questions until the usage because more natural for me.

I know this makes me a b*tch, but I'm putting this out there for the good of the many: people judge you when you use poor grammar. If you are an educator sending letters home with crap like "...student's need to..." strewn about (real example, by the way), parents will THINK YOU ARE STUPID. Pick up a copy of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style and make it your business to learn from these masters. It does not matter if you are teaching science (s'cience?), English, or wood shop--you had to take English to graduate. So prove that you showed up for class.

Rant over. But would it be wrong for me to paint over the apostrophe on the Fine Touch work van? ;-)

The holiday of my people: http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

Cari, I dedicate this post to you...I would be lost without our fierce instant-messaging sessions over poor diction and apostrophe abuse (abus'es'?) :-)

Friday, October 2, 2009

Rachael and the Big Wide World

Rachael discovered the moon last night.

We were walking out of the mall around 7:30pm last night, so it was pretty dark outside. I just happened to notice a nearly-full moon in our line of sight and said "ohh, Rach, look at how pretty to moon is tonight!" She looked around for a bit until we got her to look up into the night sky.

"Moon? Over der? MOON! The moon is over der, Momma!"

It never occurred to me that she hadn't really seen the moon before. I mean, we're outside a lot in the summer, but the sun is out until after 9pm--no moon out when she's playing. And in the colder months, we're inside most of the time. Rach is in bed by 8pm most nights during all seasons, so very few moon moments. Reading Goodnight Moon only gets you so far...

Rachael talked about the moon the whole way home. "Where's the moon now, momma? Over der? Over DER?" She was fascinated. How many times have you noticed the moon in the past month, the past YEAR, and given it much thought? I can't properly express how amazing it was to see, feel, and hear this experience through her eyes. What's more is that she able to TELL US so clearly about what she was thinking and how she was feeling--after more than a year in speech therapy, we definitely don't take that for granted!

How neat. One more piece of the big wide world tucked inside that pretty head of hers. One more thing she can teach her sister ("...and then the MOON comes out, Erin..."). I can't wait.

Here are some pics from my little astronomer's third birthday party! Yep, she's three! We had a princess-themed party for her:

Purple Pearl Cake


Princess Bounce House...Rachael and her lil friends LOVED it!


My lil kangaroo...in a tutu :-)

Keep on exploring Rach!