For the record- I am an intelligent, educated person. I have a BA in theatre and minored in writing
in undergrad. I have a Masters of
Science in Interdisciplinary Arts Education.
I am a thesis away from my MFA in Creative Writing with a double
emphasis in Playwriting and Creative Non-Fiction.
I don’t tell you all of this to brag.
I tell you all of this to show that I’m not an idiot.
This is important to know because what I am about to tell
you may lead you to believe otherwise.
I am an anti-grammar Nazi.
I can hear the gasps echoing through the universe from my
intelligent, educated friends. These are
people who feel physical pain when someone incorrectly uses your instead of
you’re, to instead of too. It wounds
their soul to see the English language used incorrectly.
I should be one of those people.
I am not.
In fact if it weren’t for the internet I’m not even sure I
would be so aware of the issue.
I will admit that I notice it sometimes. But I don’t think less of the perpetrator of
such a crime.
I just sort of don’t care.
And I admit- I am often the perpetrator.
(Somewhere my favorite high school English teacher just
passed out.)
Your
You’re
To
Too
They’re
Their
Its
It’s
These are just a few of the things I commonly mix up. Not because I don’t know the difference. I do.
There are two reasons I do it. First, I have believed for many years that I
have a very mild (and yes, self diagnosed) form of dyslexia. If you ever chat with me online you have
probably noticed that it is not unusual for me to swap letters, particularly
vowels. I usually catch it almost
immediately. But in order to not do it I
have to be concentrating. This has been
true all my life, ever since I could write I swapped letters around. Even in handwritten notes I catch it
quickly. So I suppose it is more like my
hands are dyslexic but my brain is not.
Like I have retrained my brain to make sure my eyes see the difference
most of the time, but it hasn’t quite relayed the message to my hands. When I was a kid I can recall making a very
conscious decision that this would not deter me. And I wouldn’t let anyone know. Back then if you had a learning disability
you were branded stupid, at least in my little town. I didn’t want to be stupid. And I didn’t want anyone to have any more
reason than they already had to make fun of me.
So I kept it a secret. I still
mostly keep it a secret. (Until now I
suppose.) Because I’ve learned to get
around it. I’ve earned advanced
degrees. And have found ways to hide it. Except in these commonly mistaken words to
which I pay little attention. They are
my tell in the English poker face I worked so hard to develop.
The second reason? I
just don’t care. (CHOKE*GASP*WHEEZE*
went the educated among us.) I just
don’t. I am a writer. Yes.
And I love the English language.
Yes. But you know what? I just don’t care about words like to and
too, they’re and their. Particularly in
my informal communication, texts and facebook, even this blog. These are meant to be cursory thoughts,
fleeting moments of observation, genuine and spontaneous expressions of joy,
love, pain, aggravation, fear, insert emotion here. I spell words incorrectly, use punctuation
incorrectly, and often, very very often, end my sentences with a preposition. For those of you who grammar rules come easy
to you may be able to be impulsively perfect.
I cannot. Add to this, these
words seem so arbitrary to me, clouding my sentences because they have to be
there for the words that matter. There
are so many other words that need my attention, scream for it even. There are choices to be made between
beautiful, exquisite, and gorgeous.
Decisions as to whether frightening, terrifying, or just plain scary is
the word that fits. Is my character sad,
gloomy, or miserable? Am I happy,
elated, or ecstatic? The other words in
my sentence are like underwear, necessary to support but not meant to be seen
(unless you are stripping down the sentence and really looking). I put them in and then cover them up.
It is simply a matter of priorities. Neither better nor worse, just
different.
So my Grammar Nazi friends, you are correct. You will always be correct. We grammar criminals concede that you are and
will always be correct. And we may even
concede that in this way you may be a bit more intelligent than the rest of
us. And by all means, if I am writing something professional or I ask you to read something, correct away!
But I bet there are some things that other people find to be
simple, big fat “duh’s” that you find difficult.
Parallel parking.
Cooking.
Memorization.
Math.
Telling a joke.
Singing.
Sudoku.
Cross Word Puzzles.
Sports.
Do I need to go on?
So the next time you see one of us do something that offends
the Grammar Nazi inside of you maybe cut us just a teeny bit of slack. We’re not stupid. We just don’t see the same things you do.
