QOTD: "Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain." - Pierre Elliot Trudeau
Reading: Mary Morris (editor), Maiden Voyages
Listening to: nothing
Decluttering accomplishments: sold the exercise bike that's been in storage for four years
I really need to get more sleep. I stayed up late last night, reading a murder mystery. Which meant I dragged myself through the day at work. I did, however, manage to be reasonably productive despite my exhaustion. After work, I had dinner and bought the DVD of the recent A&E production about Shackleton. Not that I have any idea when I will find time to watch it. Then it was time for storytelling. This wasn't the most high energy evening there and I didn't feel up to telling anything. The definite highlight was Steve's rendition of a tall tale. I'd heard the story before but his presentation was very very good.
Something is driving me crazy whenever I listen to the news these days. It has to do with the Catholic church pedophilia scandal. Or, actually, not with the scandal itself, but with a change in usage that I find difficult to accept. Namely, why does everyone say "Cardinal Bernard Law" versus the correct usage, which should be "Bernard Cardinal Law"? This seems to have changed a while back, but it still drives me nuts.
Along the same line, there's been a decline in proper past tense formations of several verbs. A news report today said somebody "sneaked" into somewhere, rather than "snuck." And I keep hearing that various people "pleaded" guilty, instead of "pled."
I'm sure that Bill Gates is partially responsible for this sloppiness, as the grammar checker in Microsoft Word is often wrong. A particularly grating example is Microsoft's failure to recognize that "data" is a plural noun. I know I'm fighting a losing battle on this one, but I will continue to be pedantic about it. My annoyance at Microsoft over this has me ignoring their grammar checker completely and turning instead to my favorite reference book. Karen Elizabeth Gordon's The Transitive Vampire is accurate without being overly prescriptive and has thoroughly charming examples, complete with Gorey-esque illustrations. Sentences about vampires and werewolves are much more fun than Strunk and White.
Copyright 2002 Miriam H. Nadel