Do Schools Even Teach Proper English Anymore?

Everyone who knows me knows that I despise poor English, both written and spoken.  And now that I have a blog, I'm going to air a grievance or five about a few things.  Anyone reading this has a choice:  read it and learn from it, read it and ignore it, or close it and go do something else.

Now, mind you, I'm not the World Expert on English by any means.  But there are some very basic rules that some people either don't know, didn't learn, or just ignore.  In no particular order, here goes:

Plurals don't have apostrophes.  Never in all of my years of school did I ever see a teacher write a plural and put an apostrophe in it.  "There are a lot of car's in the parking lot."  Yes, I've seen that.  "Buy 3 donut's and get one free."  Seriously?  And while we're on the subject, the word "gets" doesn't have one either.  I've seen that and it drive me nuts.  "Whoever get's home first can unlock the door."  Failure.

"It's" means "it is" or "it has" and nothing else.  The possessive form of "its" is just that, "its."  No apostrophe needed.  While we're at it, the word "yours" and "theirs" don't have apostrophes either.  (Yes, I've seen those written with apostrophes.)

The contractions for "cannot," "do not," "will not," etc. DO use apostrophes.  It's most likely the result of text speak and IM speak, but contrary to popular usage these days, the aforementioned words do in fact need an apostrophe, unless, of course, someone with a lot more authority than I have decrees that the apostrophe is a punctuation mark of old and should be abandoned.

"Theirs" and "ours" DO NOT use apostrophes.  Again, I've seen these written with them.  Normally, a possessive word would have an apostrophe, but only if it is a proper noun (a name) or an object ("the boy's bicycle"), but these pronouns don't.

Mind you, I'm not apostrophobic or anything, but if you're going to use the darned things, use them correctly.

The term "a lot" is two words, not one.  That is, unless you mean "allot," which means to divide or distribute by share or portion.

There are many more written peeves that I could air, but I'll move on to the one spoken one that almost makes me want to throw inanimate objects at poor, defenseless creatures*...

"...and stuff like that (there)."  Lazy English at its finest (notice I didn't use an apostrophe in "its," huh?).  For whatever reason, more and more people are using this instead of just listing an example or two of whatever they're doing.  It's becoming the "you know" of the 21st Century (notice that the "it's" here DID get an apostrophe because it means "it is.")  I put the word "there" in parentheses because some people add that to the phrase, making it all the more annoying.

Am I too picky?  Perhaps.  As everyone knows, I like to have a little fun with the language at times.  And the way the English language is set up, it's ripe for heckling.  I am guilty as charged with making up my own words and mangling others.  But I do that for fun, not for lack of knowing what is correct.  When Diana was little and learning the language that she will use to communicate for a lifetime, I always told her that "if you know what is wrong, then you'll know what is right."  Today, at age 20 (as of today in fact), she does speak and write quite well.

* No, I wouldn't actually do that because I like most critters and wouldn't want to cause them any harm.

We Got a New Yard!

After about an eternity or so of having a yard that looks more like an overgrown tumbleweed farm, we finally had the place hacked to smithereens in order to get it back to where it should be.  As you'll see in the photos, the transformation was amazing to say the least.

Out with the old...

And in with the new...

See?  I could have sworn I saw wild animals running around back there.  No, wait---I couldn't have because the yard was too overgrown!  And not only did we get the yard cleared out, we got a new gate, too!

Here's the old gate:

Here's the new one:

Victor's crew did a fine job.  We had a lemon tree that was pretty decrepit.  Not only did they trim back and save the original lemon tree, but they took a branch from it and planted it over in the flower bed next to the fence.  What I always liked about that lemon tree is that it grows those HUGE! grapefruit sized lemons (can't recall the name of that variety, so I just call 'em "giant lemons").

Hopefully sometime soon I can cover getting the inside of our house back into shape...

So, 2010 is a Quarter of the Way Over

Last year, I took out this space so I'd have a place to write stuff down.  And I've made great use of that space.  My blog, the dust collector.  The last time I wrote anything in here was back in January.  Shameful.  Utterly shameful.

But I haven't had much to write about, being that things are more or less the same.  I still need a job, still live in the same place, still own the same car, etc.  My job recruiter says that things are starting to open up, which means that my salary will come on a check with a real company name rather than that of the State of Kahleefohnyuh.  (Well, that's how our governor says it...)  At this writing, there are two different possible positions pending for me.  And while my recruiter finds jobs through his sources, I find ones online as well, so there are a few more.  Unfortunately, online positions don't usually have a means of following up, which means that I submit my resume and...wait.  Given the current economy, all we can do is the best we can do.

Funwise, I was able to attend the annual West Coast Bash.  Normally, that takes place on a Sunday in March at Six Flags Magic Mountain.  This year, they expanded the event by adding a day at Knott's Berry Farm to make it a full weekend.  The day at Magic Mountain was moved to Saturday, and replaced on Sunday with Knott's.  At both parks, not only did we get to eat for free (included in the cost of the event), but we had various backstage tours.  If you're a fan of theme parks, there's nothing like getting the chance to see your favorite attractions from a backstage point of view or getting to stand on the track.  The highlight for me was getting to walk into the Calico Mine Ride in two different spots and seeing it that way instead of on the train that runs through it.  We also got to visit the roundhouse, where their vintage narrow gauge trains are stored and maintained.

2010 looks to be a better year than 2009 turned out to be.  I look forward to being back to work and able to get out and do some more things.  Then I'll have something to write about.