Saturday, Jan. 20, 2007

I Like The Word 'Apostrophe'.


I've been somewhat reluctant to put this entry out for the world to read it and, ultimately, pass judgement on it. But, since this is a text-based medium in a community of people who also utilize the written word, I'm a writer (or at least I play one on tv), and an inherent love of words and punctuation and spelling are such a big part of who I am, it's past time for me to get this entry out of my head.

Alright. Allow me to take a deep breath and admit...

... I hate seeing or hearing grammar and spelling mistakes and faux pas. Honestly, it makes my skin crawl.

And for a long time, I thought I was alone, or that I was some kind of mutant word nerd. I remember when I was in the ninth grade, there was a classmate... and I remember her name, to this day, for the story I'm about to relate... who liked soap operas. She wrote the titles of most of the daytime dramas on her blue canvas binder, and emblazoned across the front of the binder, in black Magic Marker, was "Day's of Our Lives". It made me want to scream, tear out my hair, and whack my head against the desktop, all at the same time. I'd stare at it, sometimes, wondering if I was really seeing what I was seeing. And then I'd stare at the floor in denial, only to steal looks back as if checking to see if it hadn't all been a horrible nightmare.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago, when I started reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, and I find the following passage:

"To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as 'Thank God its Friday' (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive 'its' (no apostrophe) with the contraction 'it's' (with apostrophe) ... sets off a simple Pavlovian 'kill' response in the average stickler. The rule is: the word 'it's' (with apostrophe) stands for 'it is' or 'it has'. If the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has' then what you require is 'its'. This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave."

And I thought, "Oh, my gods. I'm *not* alone. And furthermore, I think I'm in LOVE."

What I don't understand, though, is how offended some people get when you mention that grammar and spelling errors irk you. In my experience, conversationally admitting that, yeah I won a couple of spelling bees in my younger days and punctuation marks are actually kind of cool, is akin to calling the other person a mindless waste of flesh and causes them to unleash a swarm of excuses as to why they, themselves, are not good spellers or good at grammar.

Which, first of all, there's no need to offer excuses or explain. At least, not to me. I'm not going to think that you beat your dog or steal office supplies from work if your grammar is bad. I'm not anyone's editor or supervisor. But, for some reason, people feel the need to tell you that they had horrible teachers in grade school and never learned the right place for the apostrophe, or that spelling is something that you either can or cannot do (not true), or that the nuns at the Catholic school they attended beat the students every time any of them misplaced a comma and so the whole business of punctuation is just a traumatic experience.

Which... okay. I can't say much about nuns, but I can tell you that if a person really wished to find out how to properly place a semi-colon, they could learn. There's approximately 14 quinjillion books on the subject, for one. And I've had people in the past who know I'm good with words and commas and such come to me and say, "Could you help me with apostrophes?" or "Could you help me learn how to spell better?" In her book, Truss mentions several times that there are plenty of resources available to people who want to improve their grammar, but if they don't avail themselves, then it would stand to reason that they don't really want to fix it.

I wasn't born knowing how to properly spell a bunch of words, and if I run across a word I routinely misspell, I go to the dictionary and I figure out why it's hanging me up, and I try and find a way to remember the right spelling. It's important to me. It's almost like a game for me, and it has also had the wonderful benefit of being a good life skill, knowing how to communicate myself through writing to the best of my ability.

But I've seen people get really pissed off, to the point of name calling and spittle flinging, when I try to gently correct a textual error they made. Now, keep in mind, I don't generally offer corrections unsolicited. If you want my help, you have to ask me, but I'm not That Woman. But, if it's a glaring error, or if the existence of the error runs the risk of making the person look unprofessional, I may speak up. Not to sound superior, not to call the person out, but just so that they won't look careless to a client or a superior. And people just lose their minds.

Near as I can figure, they must feel like I'm calling them stupid or something. Which I'm not, but a lot of people seem to have a lot tied into their whole punctuation-as-self image. What further surprises me and consternates me is when these people, who are now pissed off and barely talking to me, snottily bring to my attention errors that I've made, all "You're not perfect either, you nerdy bitch."

Which, I never said I was perfect. I never said that I don't misspell stuff on occasion, or that I laugh at people's mistakes behind their backs. I make approximately 589739238 typos an entry, but I'm also fairly careful when I read back over so that I catch as many as I can before I post it. My writing style here is rather loose, so I use run-on sentences more here than I might otherwise because I tend to write how I talk. Which can be kind of meandering and free-form. I suppose if someone wanted to pass judgement on my stylistic choices and critique my comma usage in this entry, well then, go right ahead. But, if you're doing it just to proclaim me imperfect, you're wasting your time. I already know this.

Anyway, if you're interested in proper punctuation in this day and age, here's Lynne Truss's webpage for your perusal. And please remember, while there's some rude people out there, not all of us who like punctuation are evil demons.

saturncat at 11:40 p.m.

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