And You Thought Grammar School Was Over
Poor grammar and punctuation: My mother's biggest pet peeve. I don't know how many times I've heard her say it. She corrects newscasters, papers, magazines, public speakers -- no one is beyond criticism.
As the daughter of an English teacher, correct usage was drilled into my head. And though I don't know my definitions as well as I should, I still get around the whole communication thing pretty well.
When I was in school, we diagrammed sentences until our eyes bled and our fingers locked in an arthritic grip around our trusty #2's. The act of diagramming one sentence could (and did) take up to two sheets of paper. (College ruled!) But in today's school curricula? No more.
*Sigh* I hate to even give her credit... But the School-Mistress T has a little pop quiz for you kiddies. And she makes a brilliant point in the process. No amount of poetry, free writing, journal entries or haiku will ever replace proper training in the mechanics of the English language.
As the daughter of an English teacher, correct usage was drilled into my head. And though I don't know my definitions as well as I should, I still get around the whole communication thing pretty well.
When I was in school, we diagrammed sentences until our eyes bled and our fingers locked in an arthritic grip around our trusty #2's. The act of diagramming one sentence could (and did) take up to two sheets of paper. (College ruled!) But in today's school curricula? No more.
*Sigh* I hate to even give her credit... But the School-Mistress T has a little pop quiz for you kiddies. And she makes a brilliant point in the process. No amount of poetry, free writing, journal entries or haiku will ever replace proper training in the mechanics of the English language.
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