This is my attempt at proper grammar. Wow, I already misspelled a word and had to go back and check it. Guess which one… it was grammar. I swear I’m not stupid, but Lord knows I cannot write a mechanically accurate sentence or paragraph to save my life. I love words and have struggled with a laundry list of learning disabilities to even get to the pathetic state I am in today. I have taken Latin, Spanish and French and at best I managed to pull a C in Spanish. I’m going to skip commenting on the other two.
The weird thing is I’m not stupid. When I study subjects that don’t require a mastery of the language, I tend to be a straight A student. In fact, I’m pulling a 4.0 in grad school studying computer science. Being the obvious masochist I am, one of my majors in undergrad was English. So now I’m cursed to always have people run questions about grammar, spelling and sentence structure by me for clarification. Half the time, I’m more nervous than a Girl Scout at an R. Kelly concert. I’m so afraid I’ll be exposed for the fraud I am.
A few weeks back, I found an old high school report card. I had all As, with two very glaring exceptions. The first was Physical Education. The second was, of course, English. Maybe my problem is I am too gifted to confine myself. I’m sure Van Gough was criticized in his time for making blurry pictures.
I’m not the first grammar terrorist. I have role models like E.E. Cumming. Even Kerouac was a tad sloppy when it came to little details like grammar and sentence structure. Just check out John 11:35 from the New Testament. Does that really constitute a verse? Probably. See, there I go again. One word does not a sentence make.
Yoda, the apostles, Snoop Dogg and many other great minds take liberty with the mechanics of language. English is a living entity. Where a language like Latin is very dead and very set in its ways, English grows and morphs and changes year by year. If you threw around words like “download” or “laptop” 20 years ago, you would have likely been directed to the nearest strip club.
Sure I care about my dysfunctional writing style and complete lack of grammar, syntax and spelling, but if I managed to get a degree in English and still take liberties with these elements, don’t call it stupidity, just call it a genius with careless disregard for the rules of mere mortals. For the record, I did misspell disregard the first time around.
The weird thing is I’m not stupid. When I study subjects that don’t require a mastery of the language, I tend to be a straight A student. In fact, I’m pulling a 4.0 in grad school studying computer science. Being the obvious masochist I am, one of my majors in undergrad was English. So now I’m cursed to always have people run questions about grammar, spelling and sentence structure by me for clarification. Half the time, I’m more nervous than a Girl Scout at an R. Kelly concert. I’m so afraid I’ll be exposed for the fraud I am.
A few weeks back, I found an old high school report card. I had all As, with two very glaring exceptions. The first was Physical Education. The second was, of course, English. Maybe my problem is I am too gifted to confine myself. I’m sure Van Gough was criticized in his time for making blurry pictures.
I’m not the first grammar terrorist. I have role models like E.E. Cumming. Even Kerouac was a tad sloppy when it came to little details like grammar and sentence structure. Just check out John 11:35 from the New Testament. Does that really constitute a verse? Probably. See, there I go again. One word does not a sentence make.
Yoda, the apostles, Snoop Dogg and many other great minds take liberty with the mechanics of language. English is a living entity. Where a language like Latin is very dead and very set in its ways, English grows and morphs and changes year by year. If you threw around words like “download” or “laptop” 20 years ago, you would have likely been directed to the nearest strip club.
Sure I care about my dysfunctional writing style and complete lack of grammar, syntax and spelling, but if I managed to get a degree in English and still take liberties with these elements, don’t call it stupidity, just call it a genius with careless disregard for the rules of mere mortals. For the record, I did misspell disregard the first time around.
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