I'm thrilled that my friend, Michele, sent me this wonderful book called "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves."  It discusses myriad ways we butcher the English language when writing.  Although I highly recommend it to those of you with grammar and punctuation issues, not everyone will understand (and enjoy) the humor in the book.  And when you read the book:  Yes, there are some of us who really do feel compelled to mark out unnecessary apostrophes when we see them.

 

The area of linguistics has always intrigued me.  Not everyone, of course, shares the same passion I have about the great vowel shift; I have yet to find someone outside academe that gets excited discussing the auditory difference between an American saying "I'll have a coke" and a Canadian saying "I'll have a coke."  I disagree with those who insist this is a dialect; you can trace back far enough and see the remnants of the great vowel shift in their ancestral roots.  If this intrigues you and you can also peg which province people are from just by hearing them speak, email me.  Then I'll know I'm not crazy.

 

I'm not sure when my love for English began; I'm thinking it must be Mr. Katchmar's fault.  In seventh grade we had to take some big honking test for which we had to know all of the parts-of-speech.  Although I didn't enjoy studying for it, it all must have stuck in my head.  (My apologies to those that I continuously correct.) 

 

I think that, too, I noticed a difference between the way my family spoke and the way everyone else in my hometown talked.  No one in my family says things like "yous" (as in "What can I get yous to drink?") or "warsh" (as in the laundry).  No one in my family incorrectly uses verbs (as in "don't she look pretty?")...I could go on.  Now I didn't grow up in some well-to-do family where all that was spoken was the Queen's English.  (We all know my uncles are a little loopy, but even they speak properly.)  I guess I can blame my grandma and my mom in part. 

 

Once I began to notice the differences, I began to wonder why.  And thus, my obsession began.