Grammar Witch

Today when I was driving back from San Antonio I got to thinking about grammar. I believe it was because the radio DJ used "less" when he should have used "fewer." Much like Pavlov and his dog, my high school trained us to cringe every time we heard a "me" when it should have been an "I" and I never lost that nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling about bad grammar.  A few years ago my sister gave me this card for my birthday:

And inside...

There are now many versions of this card, but at the time I'd never seen it before, and it was perfect. Of course there are lots of grammar rules that make you seem like an ass if you use them in everyday conversations. For example, if, instead of saying, " that's something I won't put up with" you said, " that is something up with which I will not put," you would sound like a pretentious old man in a Dickens novel. But in general, yes I am kind of stickler for sticking to the grammar rules. 

Therefore, I'm going to share my top three pet peeves when it comes to messing up the English language. I just need to get it off my chest. My blood pressure is getting kind of high.

1. The old I vs. Me. 

       People are overcompensating. It seems everyone decided that if they ever used the word "me" they would sound uneducated and unprofessional. Not true. There are actually times at which "me" is the right word to use. For example, do not send an email to "Bob and I." Send and email to "Bob and me." "Send me" an email sounds a lot better than "send I" an email, doesn't it? My old boss used to do this all the time and I really don't know why because he was kind brilliant.

        This is also way too prevalent on Facebook. If I had a dollar for every time someone captioned their picture " Bob and I" I could buy a Lamborghini. When you caption a picture what you are essentially saying is, " this is a picture of...." This is a picture of me after I had five tequila shots, not this is a picture of I making a drunken fool of myself.

2. Ending a sentence with the word "at."

     Surprisingly what bothers me is not that you are ending a sentence with a preposition. What bothers me is that the word "at" is entirely unnecessary. In the above birthday card, she could have just asked, "where's your birthday party?" This has been on my mind all year because in my very first class as a grad student last fall our professor asked us to go around the room and answer, " where'd you do your undergrad at?" My first thought was to get the university to refund all my tuition and become a street artist. Ending your sentence with a preposition will most of the time make you seem like a normal person. Ending your sentence with "at" will make you seem like your name is Billy Bob, you have one tooth, and your overalls are torn from the squirrel trying to claw its way off of the spit on which you were roasting it. 

3. Misspellings. 

     This is not really a grammar problem, per se, but it makes you look equally unprofessional. And it is also on my mind because of a professor. This week I had a professor post an assignment that asked us to find an article that addressed how an advertising trend had "morfed" in the past ten years. Morfed? Morphed. Phuck that.

    I also recently had a very long email exchange about a computer chord. As far as I know that thing that charges your laptop is not a musical note. It's a cord. If you are so important that you must have a "chord" sent over to your hotel immediately please understand the difference between electronic equipment and parts of a song. 

Three other things:

1. I have many times used "your" instead of "you're" and even "their" instead of "they're" once or twice. Just know it gives me heartburn when I hear the shwoop of a text finally being delivered and then realize my mistake will be stuck in smartphone space forever.

2. I go to a very good university with a very good graduate program. I'm not hating.

3. Sorry for being snarky.

Read on.