Monday, October 12, 2009

Grammar Snob

Thanks to my mom, I'm pretty grammatically correct most of the time. Because of this, I am often turned off by improper use of common words. I realize that there are several words/phrases in the English language that don't make sense or that we just don't understand the correct way to use them. Before I get to the main point of this blog, I have to pause and tell a brief story that nearly sent me over the edge.

One morning, I was doing my daily facebook stalking and ran across a status update that read "wondering why her dad said "up and Adam!" while she was growing up and who Adam is?"

Adam? Really? Does that even make sense? NO! The correct phrase is "Up and at 'em". No need to bring Adam into this. You can imagine my horror.

So...back to the point of this whole post. In all my blog browsing and post reading, I come across quite a few blogs on home/decor/furniture makeovers. 99% of the time, these makeovers really have taken items from drab to fab and deserve all kinds of magical wordings and sound effects to get the grandeur of the new and improved item across. However, about 3 out of 4 times, the blogger misuses a very common word used in every day language:

Wa Lah.

What? You don't know what that word is? Let's try this one:

Waa La

Or this one?

Wah La

You mean you can't tell what that word is? Oh, that's because IT'S NOT REALLY SPELLED LIKE THAT!! How about Voila (and I realize that it usually has a little ' above the a, but I can't seem to get that to happen here)? Ahh, better. I know that, especially here in the south, we tend drop sounds off of words and sometimes even change the word entirely. My point is this: Southern or not, if you're writing for a blog to be published for the world to see from now until eternity and will be read by hundreds of people every day, you should pay attention to those little red squiggly lines underneath some of the things you type. That usually means that either you're typing my name (which is never recognized as properly spelled) or the word is misspelled. You be the judge...but then again, I guess that's the problem, isn't it?

Call me a grammar snob if you will. Just know that I'd rather be known as the girl who can't stand incorrect grammar than the one who uses it.

3 comments:

joann said...

hi
how do you make digi scrap paper etc small to use to make a header
any help would be great
thanks, Joann

Joann said...

Hi again;
thanks for your reply
I'll keep looking
Joann

Lori G said...

You know exactly how I feel about this! Up and Adam made me laugh out loud. I heard a girl on the news the other day talk about how the flooding in her area was just a test of their endurity. Endurity? Not only is it just wrong, it's not even a word! If only we could get paid for correcting people, we'd be rich! ;)