It’s late afternoon. I’m sitting in the living room with my family waiting for bedtime. And dinner. But mostly bedtime.
I am still in school-mode and mention something about grammar and using past tense to my husband, who’s trying to complete the New York Times crossword puzzle in less than twenty-four hours.
Like my husband, my son William ignores my grammar comment; instead, he continues building his Lego armoury.
Vivian, however, looks up from her Lego school. “What’s past tense?” she asks.
I explain using examples. “I eat a banana when I’m hungry,” I say. “But yesterday I…”
Vivian fills in the blank. “Ate a banana.”
I smile and continue with a second example. “Today I drive my car, ” I say. “But yesterday I…”
“Drove my car,” she says.
Clearly fearing that I’m going to offer examples until bedtime, Vivian says, “You sound like my teacher.”
It doesn’t sound like a compliment. I look up and catch my husband rolling his eyes in mock annoyance at my teacher-self.
“Do you know what past tense is?” I ask him.
“Yeah,” he says. “I was married. I was happy before I got married.”
Any grammar errors that annoy you?
Do you do crosswords? Sudokus? sarcasm?
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My biggest pet peeve is people who use “me” when it should be “I” and “I” when it should be “me”. Both are equally annoying!
Examples: Sharon and I went to the store. (not me & Sharon). Peg went to the store with Sharon & me. (not Sharon & I).
And yes, I do all three – I am fluent in sarcasm!
Sarcasm, where dashes and ellipses rein supreme!
I wrote this response in the bathroom at the grocery store. True story.
Awesome. Did the writing on the stall wall give you inspiration? 😉
No one writes in the stalls at Wegmans. Or if they do, they clean them immediately. Seriously.
Grammar is just a state of mind that sometimes I attain, and sometimes I can’t quite reach. It’s not important to me, no do I appreciate it when people point out my failed attempts at grammar nirvana. I’m happy we don’t live in a Grammar Police State, and that the Grammar Police are not inside of my head.
I love grammar, but I love that our language is evolving. I can’t stand it when people correct people…
Love it, Leanne! My family makes fun of my grammar self, but I notice that they’re all happy with it when they need me to proofread their projects. 😉
I think it’s my only marketable skill I have to freely lend out (split infinitive intended…)
I am terrified of saying “your welcome” in print … so I usually avoid making the mistake and write “you are very welcome” instead because “you’re welcome” seems wrong.
Agreed. Those homonyms are tricky when you’re (your!) in a rush.
“Gots ta”. As in “I gots ta go pee.” I had a friend that used “gots ta” a lot.
Notice my past tense above. And now I’m heading to the bathroom.
Ha. I gots ta reply to your comment.
I’m a wicked word nerd. My recent peeve is when people use “I” as an object pronoun. “Pat and Jim invited my husband and I over for dinner.” WRONG! It should be “my husband and me.” Although one should never use “it sound right” as the litmus test, this one actually works: “Pat and Jim invited me over for dinner.” Correct. So if Pat & Jim included your spouse at dinner, you’re still “me,” the object of the verb “invited.” Maybe it was more fun, maybe it wasn’t. At least someone else did the cooking.
I love Lady Gaga, but I can barely listen to her song “You & I” because she ought to be saying “You & Me,” but she says “you & I” over and over to infinity….
I never thought of that. I do remember some schmaltzy songs from the early 80s that made similar errors. Good lord I”m gettin’ old.
In writing, yes. Grammar errors bug me. Speaking, though? Not really. I dated a guy in college that was majorly OCD, and it used to kill him when people would use split infinitives. I truly didn’t even know what that WAS until I met him (yes I was an English Major in college . . . what?), so would do it all the time and drive him nuts. Fun times.
I do not do crosswords or any puzzles. I do enjoy some nice sarcasm every now and again. Usually with a nice Chianti.
Star Trek forever changed the world of split infinitives…
And good distinction between speaking and writing. Agreed.
Your husband sounds hilarious, Leanne!
Great post!
He is. He pretty much has to be to survive living with someone like me.
Us TEACHers never stop TEACHing, do we? My poor son has two TEACHers as parents. He can never catch a break from all the TEACHing we feel we need to give him. Geez…
As you can tell, I can’t relate to this post at all, Leanne!
Do you ever find yourself to tired to teach (or discipline) at the end of the day? My husband claims that that’s why a lot of teacher’s kids are brats. (Yours and mine being exceptions, of course…)
My son constantly says throwed instead of threw. I find the need to correct him everytime. Is that not what mother’s are for? Sarcasm was implemented into my brain as I came rushing out of the birthing canal. Thanks to mother.
Ah yes, sarcasm. I know it well. And I never know if I’m correcting my kids too much or not enough.
There are a lot of grammar mistakes that bug me but I think the worst offender is it’s / its. I saw it written wrong on a billboard once. I don’t remember what the billboard was advertising, but I remember that mistake.
Sarcasm is my favorite art form.
Yes! Also, the made up word, its’…
Doesn’t annoy me, but all of our kids went through/are in an “amn’t” stage, as in “Dad, Reed’s hitting me!”/”No I amn’t!” Tax Credit #4 is fully engaged in the amn’t stage now, in fact, and Hellcat still dawdles there once in a while.
You’ve probably heard/seen this before, but it’s funny every time. Comedian Brian Regan talking about some of the rules of grammar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkrMsPiqG6M
K-A-T. I’m outta here.
Love it. Thanks for the link. DH was listening to it LOUDLY while I was reading The Lightning Thief aloud to our spawn tonight. Sigh.
KAW and I have seen Brian Regan in concert a couple times. He’s awesome. I used to play his stuff for my students. They loved it.
I have found love in Sarcasm puzzles. Right Sheldon? I am guiltied of so many grammar missteps. Your husbands comeback sounded like a Red Skelton line : ‘Yes, I married Miss Right. I just didn’t know her first name was ‘Always’.
That is such a brilliant line. Dang, why didn’t I think of it (with Mr.)? Do people still say Dang?
I hate it when people put apo’strophe’s in plural’s, a’s if every time there i’s an ‘s there need’s to be an apo’strophe. Whey do people do that?
Yes. The promiscuous apostrophe, the one that gets it on with every word with an s.
I am glad your family has a great sense of humor! He sounds just like Danny!
How’s the skiing?
Skiing is great this year (at least that’s what I’m told)…
All of the above, plus I am especially annoyed by split infinitives.
To boldly comment…
I teach middle school andI occasionally see some very interesting conjugations! I laughed very loudly when I readed your husband’s comment! hahahahaha.. you were probably happy, too!
I didn’t know you were a middle school teacher, too!
yep, living life on the edge! middle school is like your blog tag line – if you can’t laiugh at yourself, laugh at (and with your) kids!
Ha! I think its vs. it’s is my latest grammar/spelling pet peeve.
Its’ really annoying…
I got caught out recently, writing “I was sat there”, instead of “I was sitting there”… of course now I’m paranoid about it.
I make a ton of mistakes like that when I’m revising.
I think it’s funny when people (particularly those who are trying to sound smart!) use the reflexive “myself” to avoid making a mistake with I and Me.
“You can hand your paper to either Mr. Smith or myself.”
Nope. Not so much.
Ha. I was teaching a scene from Shakespeare today. I think I’m going to try to bring back “Methinks.” Want to help? Methinks you should.
I get bugged by authors who create new compound adverbs by liberally strewing hyphens between perfectly ordinary plain English words that don’t need ’em. Gives the word ‘tense’ a whole other dimension…
Am I a hyphen-crazy-woman, Matthew?
No no..on re-read I realise my comment wording is sloppy & ambiguous. My bad. I have to edit material here in NZ on stuff written by others in which varous authors create hyphenated compounds that don’t actually exist in any form other than their imagination. I have huge trouble persuading them to re-word the whole lot so it doesn’t need the grammar trap. Makes me tense!
If I corrected people in real life as much as I do in my head, I’d be bitch slapped over and over. Fortunately, I have a filter. 🙂
I recently posted on facebook that I would like to become a grammer geek. I take it back. It makes me CRAZY when someone says “I seen that”. However after reading the me and I post from Aimee, my head hurts. I barely notice grammer mistakes in print, but when people are talking and break one of the rules that I know it annoy’s me. If you sound un educated to me, chances are you did not graduate from 8th grade…haha.