(And a kitten dies every time someone uses “there” for “their.”)
“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” ~A.A. Milne
“A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.” ~Baltasar Gracián
“The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar.” ~Michel de Montaigne
“And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before–and thus was the Empire forged.” ~Douglas Adams
“This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” ~Winston S. Churchill
“Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean ‘More people died,’ don’t say, ‘Mortality rose.’” ~C.S. Lewis
“The past is always tense, the future perfect.” ~Zadie Smith
“’Punctuation is the only thing that separates us from the lower animals!’ I said, sarcasm phaser set on stun. ‘Good point,’ she replied. ‘My dog still can’t use a semi-colon.’” Tutoring the Tutor
I think I may have killed a few puppies 😦
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Oh, my dog!
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I love the last quote! So hilarious. I’m sure my Labradoodle couldn’t care less about semi-colons. I hate to admit it, but I’m one of those crazy people who love grammar. I took a college grammar class just for fun even though I didn’t need the credits. Suffice to say, I gloried in diagramming sentences. :-\ Neverthless, I still get stuff wrong–mostly when I am tired or in a hurry. It takes time to edit one’s work. Love this post. You write such variety and you make it all interesting.
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I always had a love-hate relationship with grammar, but tutoring pushed me into the preachy pedagogue camp. Thanks, Lynn!
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Yes, yes, and yes!
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Lol. I’d like to add one…
“I hesitate to call myself writer (at least until I’m certain when to use a comma, a semi-colon; or an em—dash)” ~ Edward Sosa
It never hurts to learn to laugh at ourselves. 🤓
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Haha!!! That’s hilarious!!! Most of all for someone who tries to make everything perfect and could get crazy about some typos although knowing how it should be… lol!
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Mitch, you know I just love your take on life! I’ve nominated you for the Unique Blogger Award because you do have such a unique voice in the blogging world. If you choose to accept, you can find the details at https://reclaiminghope.blog/2017/10/26/the-unique-blogger-award/
If not, please accept my thanks for brightening my day with your storytelling!
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Thank you, Terri. I’ll check it out. Either way, though, I’m honored!
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Mitch, how could you? You take all my writing skills and then go turn them into one of your brilliant posts. I just hope you can sleep at night. 😀
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Reblogged this on INSPIRATION with an ATTITUDE and commented:
Thanks, Mitch! I’m not so great at proff-reeding, either….
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;>)
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Amazing how much of Star Trek as become vernacular in our culture. And then there’s Douglas Adams….now where’s my towel???
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Incorrect use of “there” and “their” really wind me up, too! This post made me chuckle, love it 🙂
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Great quotes, Mitch. Your v you’re is hardly worth mentioning… Isn’t it a fine world when grammar is our greatest contention?
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I loved all of these! My personal pet peeve is the apostrophe for plural, so I haven’t killed any puppies (yet). But I could really relate to the definition of the synonym. Whenever I can’t figure out how to spell the word I really wanted to use, I just rephrase the sentence so that words I actually do know how to spell will work.
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I’m so guilty!!
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;>)
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Dammit, the first one. Yes. I honestly can’t make myself concentrate on anything you have to say if you can’t be bothered to punctuate properly.
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Love it! I was introduced to ee cummings, who had great distain for spelling, punctuation, and other grammatical rules by a teacher who said, “So long as you, the author, get your message across to the reader, what does it matter?” Have to admit, in my own writings, I sometimes channel cummings; often when I go to correct a post before publishing, I see my errors and just say, “What’s it matter?” and hit the key!
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BTDT (been there, done that).
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That two animals may die if too many people go to the apostrophe is so sad.
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Re Sr. Gracian – They always told us to look up the spelling in the dictionary. That only works if you’re close to start with. I went with his idea.
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;>)
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