My Aunt Donna writes that she doesn't like to email me because she thinks I'm judging her spelling or grammar. A few friends concur. Such is life since becoming an English teacher.
What you all don't realize is that I've been judging you all along - that's why I became an English teacher - HA! Now they pay me to point at sentences and snort, "My God! It's a pronoun/antecedent catfight! Check it out! The /m/ has already been knocked off the 'who'!"
(No.)
I reread my last post, the one about gamma rays and sick grandfathers, noted several typos among the several limping sentences that deserve the catchphrase "REVISE FOR CLARITY" to be scribbled in orange in the margins, and I didn't even edit the post. I may never edit the post. If anything, now that I'm an English teacher, I'm less obsessive over my writing. And if I don't care about mine, I certainly don't care about yours. We don't call this here noodle shack "Shari.com" because it's all about you.
I don't even notice, honest. At best I might think, "Wow, I wish I felt free to make comma splices again. But I'd be afraid readers would snigger that I don't know how to use a semi-colon."
I disagree with Kurt Vonnegut about semi-colons, by the way. Without semi-colons, my writing would be overloaded with long dashes and pinkering ellipses. Semi-colons give visual variety. Semi-colons are the orange part of tri-colour pasta. Dashes are the plain yellow, my favourite, because we've been together much longer (me and the dashes and the plain pasta). Ellipses are definitely the green spinach pasta. I like ellipses, but too many annoy me. I hate spinach, but I tolerate it made into pasta so long as other noodles are present. Mike hates ellipses and won't use them, and he also hates spinach. I love this analogy so much right now that I might go make some pasta and blog about it.
Or I might have a nap. I love Fridays where I come home with NO papers to write, NOTHING to grade (except for this week's journals, but only 100 of them), 80% of the hamitats clean, 90% of the house clean, all library books returned (with a mere $11 fine pending), and the only problem in my life that I know of is that my car shudders too much. I think I'll get the fuel injection system cleaned tomorrow.
Oh, and I got paid three days early because of Columbus. And I finally turned all of the students' pre-Colombian literature "diaries" into lovely classroom decorations using some of the massive pile of Club Scrap stuff I bought this summer but then didn't know what to do with. (See - I just ended a sentence with a preposition!)
Speaking of which, if you're into memory-based arts and crafts and will be in town next weekend...
Another thing we Sharis have in common: our love of, and skill for, language and the written word! ;D You are an English teacher; I'm a writer and an editor (copy editor, mainly). I once even toyed with the idea of becoming a teacher (elementary school only) but decided against it.
I'm also with you regarding semi-colons; you probably can tell from this post and from my own blog. *grin* I once had to deal with a proofreader who HATED semi-colons and ruined many a carefully constructed sentence by rewriting them without the semis. She also was an unhappy person who was hard to reason with! As for me, I love to use both semis AND long dashes ("em dashes") but I generally only use elipses to show that I removed something from a quotation.
Your extended metaphor about punctuation marks and tri-coloured pasta gave this pasta fan a hankering for some, and I'm not even hungry!! Then again, that's probably my karma coming back to me, after I made untold mouths water with my new blog entry about the gourmet fall tastings menu. *smirk*
BTW, I emailed you the other day about Vegas, but I'm not sure you got it (my email client was a little wiggy that day). I also answered the questions you left in my blog. :) In short, yes it'd be very cool to meet up the Monday I'm in town and, as you said, "terrorize the city with our Shariness". *evil laugh* Or we could simply repast at the Spice Market Buffet and then play enough nickel slots to get a few free drinks! (LOL)
Squintingly modified,
Your pluperfectly gerunding new friend,
Shari from CA.!
Posted by: Scary Shari | 09 October 2005 at 09:37 PM