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...=)