Sunday, November 22, 2009

Grammar lesson

I didn't finish my degree. I couldn't I decide on a major, so I did two... until I quit them both.

However, I do take some pride in knowing that my university-level education is in languages, and therefore somewhat useful in this great big world. I took three and a half years of English and French before I realized that they aren't employable skills on their own, and moved on to get the accounting diploma that I did finish but don't ever use.

Even though I didn't finish my degree, I'd like to think that I know something about our English language. Actually, I'm pretty damn good, when it comes to knowing the grammatical rules. That doesn't mean I follow all them, though. I'm not afraid to start a sentence with a conjunction, or end one with a preposition. My spelling never did exceed the grade 5 level, and I lean towards over-punctuated, run on sentences.

Baby, some rules were made to be broken. I break them all the time.

There is one grammatical sticking point, however, that I can't get past. Working around IT, I encounter it all the time, and it drives me nuts. After a great deal of thought, I've concluded that this is my biggest grammatical pet peeve:

Folks, the proper word is hanged. Your computer hanged while you were trying to work. It isn't hung.

Hung is an adjective, referring to a gift God gives to men... and women, for that matter.
Either way, it's got nothing to do with technology.

3 comments:

  1. My grammaatical pet peeve is the incorrect use of Bring and Take.

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  2. Mine is when people say "I could care less" when the proper saying is "I couldn't care less!"

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  3. Oh boy. My first choice major was English and all you have to do is read a few sentences from my blog and it is very clear that I have abused all the rules. Those nuns wasted their time on me.

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