I try to contain the interventionist grammarian within me. I do. Most of the time I stifle the Inner Catholic Montesorri Academy Spinster Who Made Me Diagram Sentences Until I Got It. I betray no facial twitches to "I should of done it." I lament not the fissures in today's well-meaning argot at "less we forget." I resist comment when he goes "that's the color iPod I like" or she goes "I like that one too, it's sort of unique." At the risk of polluting my own usage by failing to defend it, I definitely try to not get worked up at all. Maybe it's a mute point, the affect it has on me. It doesn't seem to effect anyone else, so it's all good. With a bag of chips. How harmless is that?
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GWB does his damage, I'm sure, but I cain't hardly feel nothin' no-how. The thing is, you know the man can't think. My god, it's stamped on his fucking forehead: This bay is empty. No expectation, no disappointment.
What irritates me is the misuse of apostrophes. You know what I mean. How no one seems to understand the plural vs. the possessive anymore. I blame anachronyms. Actually, I blame initializations, since very few of those are actually anachronyms.
And what is the deal with the singular possessive, when the name ends in an "s"? I have looked this up numerous times, because I seem to be the only one left on earth who is adding an "'s", as in "Jesus's."
All the books tell me I am right, and yet even the goddamn New York Times these days is just throwing an apostrophe on the end and calling it a day.
A possessive-plural sea change has taken place, and I have somehow missed it.
And sweet, holy Christ but I should've figured you for Catholic Montesorri type. It's all falling into place now, boy-o.
But then I went and read my post again, and I think I'm okay. I think.
I'll be diagramming it later just to make sure.
And Solaris is still my baby.
Those r's you're missing seem to be resurfacing here, in the warsh, usually in Warshington state.
I watched some early Fox attempt at a beauty pageant (circa Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?) in which the hostess said of one contestant, "She's a competer." That one still hurts.