<p>Call me Miss Write Stuff, the buzz queen of broken English. Simply put, I go berserk when people trash the English language. Consider these egregious errors:
1. I can not graduate next year. Darn right you cannot graduate next year, buster. First, you have to learn that cannot is one word, not two.
2.Your a great professor, really. Lame-o! That hollow praise will not get you an A. Youre (a contraction for you are) going to need serious help. The word your is a possessive pronoun indicating ownership. Heres an example: Your professor is going to flunk you if you do not learn the difference between your and youre. And you better eliminate all the contractions in collegiate writing anyway.
3. The Pony Express insured male delivery. Personally Miss Write Stuff loves the idea of male delivery, but something far more technologically advanced than the Pony Express would be needed to ensure it.
Metaphorically speaking, I’ve got a grammar badge, and I know how to use it. I worked as a writer for the one of the largest newspapers in the country for 18 years. (Yeah, yeah, I was a reporter so get over it already.) I covered everything from crime to car accidents. My specialty was weird news, and believe me, in New Jersey, that equals virtually unlimited material.
Besides my writing background, I am an English teacher and information resource specialist. The two have mixed to create a crotchety compositional curmudgeon. Don’t get me started on the writing skills of teenagers purportedly composing in the English language.
So are you ready to see if Miss Write Stuff is up to snuff? It might not be easy to replace me with another Miss or Mr., unless of course Mr. Write Stuff arrives via male delivery. Then you just might want to call him Zeus.</p>
<p>As a high school English teacher, I feel your pain!</p>
<p>Here is my current pet peeve. Nobody – and I mean, nobody! – seems to know what to do when they want to add an apostrophe to a word that already ends in “s.”</p>
<p>For example, James owns a cat, so it’s James’s cat. </p>
<p>Yes, I KNOW it looks weird to have two s’s in a row like that, but it’s correct. You DO NOT take off the second s. That rule is only for plural nouns. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, I saw a headline in the L.A. Times! that did that and also our church bulletin. </p>
<p>I drilled it into my students’ heads after a particularly bad time grading essays about Oedipus. Too many “Oedipus’ flaws” and only a couple “Oedipus’s flaws.” </p>
<p>They’ve got it straight now, but you should have seen the shocked expressions and outright denials that I got when I carefully explained the rule.</p>
<p>It’s because the newest professional style guides actually say that it is okay. I argued with an ex-boss of mine about this when the new booklet came out a few years ago, because I think it is ridiculous.</p>
<p>The new style guide said this was okay: Alias’ Jennifer Gardner to Wed.
When traditionally it should have read: Alias’s Jennifer Gardner to Wed.</p>
<p>DRIVES ME CRAZY- but the LA Times was just following the new rules.</p>
<p>If I hear one more GRAD student say “me and my friends” I’m going to kill someone.</p>
<p>Momof2inca:</p>
<p>Diving into dangerous ground here, arguing grammar with an English teacher, but it is not just plural nouns…</p>
<p>According to Strunk and White. </p>
<p>“Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names ending in -es and -is, the possessive Jesus’, …”</p>
<p>Jesus’s, Moses’s and Isis’s are all therefore incorrect… </p>
<p>Reading ScottieMix’s note, a horrible thought has entered my mind, "have Strunk and White become obsolete? "</p>
<p>Over time, I have learned that rules are made to be broken. Change trumps all. It took me a long time to stop putting two spaces after a period.</p>
<p>I tremble to confess that though I have written many books, I still get this stuff wrong. Thanks for the clear information. </p>
<p>Now if we could just cure people of the ‘an apostrophe means look out, an S is approaching!’ mindset. Hot Fresh Donut’s, Vegetable’s on Sale Thursday’s and Friday’s…etc. </p>
<p>(The quote is not original but I can’t remember where I read it.)</p>
<p>My new favorite website:</p>
<p>[The</a> “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks](<a href=“http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/]The”>http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/)</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>What’s a pencil?</p>
<p>Andrew Sullivan has a video (hence no link here) of a stand-up comic talking about “the impotence of proof-reading.” It’s under Mental Health Break. Very funny.</p>
<p>Scottiemix, what are these professional guides you refer to? I’ve never heard of such a thing. I know about the MLA and APA and Chicago style guides… is this what you mean? And how could they just change it? </p>
<p>As for the exception mentioned by scualum, I didn’t know about that! I’m so glad I didn’t mention anything about Jesus’ etc… to my pastor… ha ha. Interesting.</p>