Ever since my grade nine English teacher berated me for using ‘allot’ instead of ‘a lot’ in my limerick about Canadian wildlife, punctuation, grammar and spelling have not been my friend, which is why I naturally felt a great joy upon reading Kurt Vonnegut’s quote on the subject this afternoon.
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” (A Man Without a Country)
I don’t even know what a semicolon is, so clearly I am already ahead of the game. BlAM! Take that Mr. Jones.
Lol ;
umm, shouldn’t that be LOL Cassandra? kidding…
So I should not feel so bad that the older I get the more I use spell check. Good to know…
Never feel bad about using spell check! That is why god made computers! (aside from those kitten screen savers of course).
I love the Vonnegut quote. I would distinguish, though, between good grammar that helps us make beautiful sense and archaic grammatical rules that muddy the waters. Certainly, language evolves as does the way we express ourselves in language. But I fear we are rapidly approaching an age when anarchy rules and obscures the message, promoting more miscommunication and division rather than understanding and unity.
Very well said. However, there are always dialects which serve to foster identity and belonging within smaller subgroups. Everything has its place, I suppose.