Anyone who knows me, even vaguely in a passing/online capacity, will have a general awareness of my love for correct spelling, good grammar and carefully composed syntax.
Further to that, anyone who knows me will have experienced what I consider one of my worst traits: I correct people (any and all people, online and in person) when they misspell, mispronounce or otherwise fumble language.
I do this (a) because clearly I’m a bit of a d*ckhead, and (b) because I firmly and fervently believe that language and its rules need to be protected, otherwise we’re just animals with fancier threads and iPhones. Or something.
I hate myself for it, and I’m sure my family and friends have an absolutely HOPPING Whatsapp group wherein they complain about me and my ways. But as the meme says; The horrors persist, and so do I.
I am, I suspect, one of the horrors.
I am aware, by the way, that I am fallible. I know I’ve made spelling mistakes, egregious and unforgivable typos, grammatical errors that would haunt the ghost of Christmas past and I once mispronounced ‘placebo’ (granted, I was in primary school – it still gives me the heebie jeebies). I’m also prone to flagrant misuse of creative licence. Please see the aforementioned heebie jeebies. But overall, I consider myself to be a protector of the language I speak and write in, though admittedly it’s not even the national language of the country in which I live. Eight hundred years, etc. Never not at it.
ALL THAT SAID.
I would like to be less of a horror and to start spreading the language love. I intend to give a dig out to those who don’t want to sound like an idiot when writing Whatsapps, emails or (worst of all) your CV. I would like to help those in need of a bit of language levelling-up, because it has come to my attention that PLENTY of us were asleep when the basics of grammar were covered at school. Yes, for all 15 years of it.
So as of next Monday, I’m going to write a short little piece about spelling, grammar, and language in general… whatever I think would be helpful. It’ll be a little cheat sheet so you never get your ‘there, they’re, their’ choice wrong ever again, or you’ll never have to question whether or not to capitalise the seasons when you’re writing about your summer holidays (spoiler alert: We don’t typically capitalise the seasons!))
Anyway, I’m going to do this regardless of the interest level because frankly, I’m just too passionate about it not to.
CHAT TO YOU MONDAY, SUCKERS.
A.
🤣🤣🤣