Grammar

For those of you who don't know, I am an admitted grammar nazi. I used to just joke about it, but it's gotten incredibly bad in recent years. Don't get me wrong, I say 'like' all the time; I type it, too! And when I text I don't always remember to capitalize or use correct punctuation. HOWEVER! I guarantee you that I use adverbs instead of adjectives, my subjects and verbs will agree, and I will have a coherent phrase as a sentence. Now because I know that most people do NOT use correct grammar, let's have a refresher course:

LOLCATZ was made as a PARODY for the American language. In no way are Americans supposed to start talking like what is written for these lolcatz. You NEVER use two helping verbs in one independent clause, such as in "I can has" same that you never use a third person singular verb conjugation with a first person singular subject. "I wants" does not exist. No matter how many times you say it, it will never exist.

May that be the same with adjectives becoming adverbs. They made adverbs for a reason, let's learn to use them correctly. I'll help: If you want to describe something after a verb, use an adverb. If you want to describe something before a noun, use an adverb. Example: I feel badly. Badly came after the verb (feel) therefore you need badly, the adverb, instead of bad, the adjective. I have a bad feeling would be using bad to describe what kind of feeling I had: a bad one. Adjectives answer the questions "What kind?", "Which one", and "How many?" whereas adverbs answer "When?", "Where?", "Why?", or "How?". If you don't know which to use, just think of those questions when trying to construct a sentence. Don't think you know any adverbs? Just put 'ly' on most all adjectives and BOOM instant adverb!

I remember my senior honors English class my teacher said that ten years ago she'd tell her students that if they didn't know how to phrase something, then they should trust their ear, as in, whichever sounds better is right. Now, however, my teacher told my class that if we don't know how to phrase something, the worst thing we can do is trust our ear. Americans butcher our language so much...it's disastrous.

Those are my two huge pet peeves when it comes to grammar. Recently, the Oxford comma has been driving me crazy because more and more people are starting to not use it. For those of you who don't know, the Oxford comma is the comma before the conjunction in a list. Example: "I had pork, peas, and beans for dinner." The comma after peas is the Oxford comma. It is optional. I don't know why it bugs me so much when people don't use it, as it is optional. For some reason it just irks me...

I'm thinking my love for grammar started when I started getting serious about French. For those of you who don't know, I am a French Education major and have already traveled to France on a program where all I did was speak French (no English) and take classes in French. To me, grammar become so mathematical after that--it's an equation of what kind of word to put where in a sentence. It makes sense to me. Perhaps it's because learning a second language is basically putting yourself back in elementary school for that language, only the high schooler's mind is something that can comprehend why you do the things you do instead of just trusting your teacher that what's being said is right.

I love it when things just fall into place. Now if only they'd just fall into place with more people...=)

Let's Reach an Understanding

Well hello everyone. This is a completely different style of blogging than my other two on here. It's something that I've been thinking about starting for a while now. Part of it is to vent, but most of it is to let the world know how it really is. Granted, most of the reasons why I want to let the world know how it really is, is because of personal experiences, which leads to the ranting. I'm not looking for conflict or disagreement, just for someone to tell the truth for once in her life.

Now here are some things to expect:

*Bluntness. I like to think this goes without saying, considering the name of the blog, But I'm here to tell you what I know without sugar coating or putting a nice little spin on things.

*Stories. Like I said, most of what I'll be talking about is stuff I've experienced. I like creating stories and scenarios to put things in perspective. It works for me.

*Circles. I'll probably go on a rant for something and in the middle contradict myself saying it's not really as bad as I'm making it out to be. This blog is to be honest with everyone, including myself.

Now here's what NOT to expect:

*Names. There will be no name dropping here. I'll probably stick to "friend" or "family member" and then use the personal gender specific pronouns. By no means is this to become a pointing fingers blog. Now I may blog about actions and you, the reader, see that you have those qualities. It would be pretty stupid to assume that I'm talking about you. Chances are, there are several people with the same qualities.

*Frequent Updates. I'm busy. I have another active blog that requires daily posts. Not to mention that this is about occurances in my life, I'm not going to just pull something out of my butt for the sake of pulling something out of my butt.

*Swearing. I don't swear. I gave it up as my New Years Resolution and even before them I rarely swore. It's not an intelligent way to get ideas across, and honestly I think it's one of the stupidest ways to get ideas across. (now here's a good example. I know several people that swear, I'm not talking about a particular person or targeting anyone.) there are just so many other words that sound cooler and are better to use for the sake of getting a point across.

And I'm sure I'll have other repetitive habits that you'll pick up on. But I think I'll just leave this here for now.

I'm not making this for the followers or the comments. If you want to, go ahead! But I'm doing this ultimately for me.