Started out as Christmasy, ended up bein' about grammar

FOUR DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS.

My current plans are to finish The Night Watch at home, and then barrel through A Walk in the Woods and From the Closet to the Altar when I get back on the 26th. Five days, four of which will be spent with my parents, for they are coming up here AFTER I go downstate to visit them. I'm sure that'll work out fine and no one will be sick of anyone.

I started Eats, Shoots & Leaves because I'm a horrible person with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It's already hilarious, so that's a relief, and on the plus side, is about grammar.

I have some issues with grammar. The author (Lynne Truss) is very much on the side of overly zealous grammar snobs, but in a I'm-a-super-fun-person-don't-you-want-to-be-my-best-friend way (yes I do, Lynne). I didn't CARE about grammar until I took a zillion foreign languages in college for opera. I couldn't diagram a sentence at all and I never really listened to the rules in grade school/high school, because I was busy writing Cheers fan fiction. So all of this magnificence you see before you is the result of reading a bunch of shit and unconsciously copying it.

Because of this, I get a bit leery of grammar snobs. They notice things I do that are technically wrong. But because I never took the time to learn these rules and thus have zero attachment to them, my opinion is that they don't matter. If you can communicate your point, I don't care if you have a dangling modifier or whatever other sin I frequently commit. Also -- split infinitives? Fuck. You. Do you know why those are seen as bad? Because the guy who came up with The Rules was going off Latin. WHERE YOU CAN'T SPLIT THE INFINITIVE BECAUSE IT'S ONE WORD. But we can. And 'to go boldly' sounds stupid.

If your language allows you to do fun, word-changey-uppy things, then you do that. 'Boldly' is earlier in the sentence and so it sounds important. 'TO BOLDLY GO' sayeth Patrick Stewart, followed by the crashingly awesome intro (for serious, no theme music is ever going to be as good as the STNG opening).

So I'll read this book. And I'll learn some things. But if anyone ever feels they need to tell me to correct my grammar (I can only assume it hasn't happened yet because you all live in mortal fear of me and my GIF-y wrath), know that my response no matter what the season shall be:

I love you all. Merry Christmas. And Happy Not Actually the End of the World Day. Glad we survived that.

Comments

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar

Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020

The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us. The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini readathon, as opposed to the lovely Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and 24in48, both of which you should participate in, but both of which are a longer commitment than this, the Busy Watching Netflix person's readathon. By 'read for six hours' what's really meant in the minithon is "read a little bit and eat a lot of snacks and post pictures of your books and your snacks, but mostly your snacks." We like to keep it a mini theme here, which mainly means justifying your books and your snacks to fit that theme. Does your book have children in it? Mini people! Does it have a dog! Mini wolf! Does it have pencils? Mini versions of graphite mines! or however you get graphite, I don't really know. I just picture toiling miners. The point is, justify it or don't

How to Build a Girl Introductory Post, which is full of wonderful things you probably want to read

Acclaimed (in England mostly) lady Caitlin Moran has a novel coming out. A NOVEL. Where before she has primarily stuck to essays. Curious as we obviously were about this, I and a group of bloggers are having a READALONG of said novel, probably rife with spoilers (maybe they don't really matter for this book, though, so you should totally still read my posts). This is all hosted/cared for/lovingly nursed to health by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) because she has a lovely fancy job at an actual bookshop ( Odyssey Books , where you can in fact pre-order this book and then feel delightful about yourself for helping an independent store). Emily and I have negotiated the wonders of Sri Lankan cuisine and wandered the Javits Center together. Would that I could drink with her more often than I have. I feel like we could get to this point, Emily INTRODUCTION-wise (I might've tipped back a little something this evening, thus the constant asides), I am Alice. I enjoy

Reading Rambo

Search This Blog