Ten-Finger Exercises

Grammar Gestapo

From wikipedia, the Gestapo is a contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; "secret state police". It was formed by Goring to "investigate and combat all tendencies to go against the state."

I suppose that's too strong a word then. But don't you ever feel like you're the punctuation police when reviewing someone else's work; or that the Comma SS have been reading yours?

The former idea bothers me more than the latter. I try to be pretty meticulous with my punctuation. (Too bad I can't say the same about my punctuality!) Still, I know that many people don't give a rip about those particular rules and toss in a comma whenever they need to take a breath.

So, today, I tried something new. (Yea! New is always good-- well, the trying of it anyway.}

Even though this blog is non-fiction, I consider myself more of a fiction writer. I don't know why, but I do. The idea of writing non-fiction, which connotes for me textbook precision and maybe boring scrupulosity, has never been something I aspired to. In fact, I have avoided anything that sounded like reporting news or article writing. My fear was not so much the grammar police as the content police, I'm sure. (My grammar may not always be great, but I have confidence about it, warrented or not.)

Today I wrote an article, a lesson, about my pet grammar peeve, the apostrophe. I guess I just saw one too many signs that said "Banana's for sale" or return address labels from "The Jenkins'". (Now where does that period belong?) I went bonkers.

How will anybody learn English as a first OR a second language if they have so many bad examples all around them?

I once wrote in to the editor of a daily email service that supplied quotations sometimes sent in by readers. They were frequently filled with errors; and one in particular was difficult to understand at best, if not changed in its meaning, by lack of good punctuation. The editor replied that some of the people sending in the quotations might be uneducated and trying their best. She didn't want to offend them. I wrote back taking a stand for good examples as a way to teach and to learn. Her response was that I have a problem and should look inside myself to see why I am so critical.

Sorry about that. I should save my ranting for days with an 'R' in them.

Guess I'll go feed the stealthfish in my pond and calm down.