Because it’s a cat it’s less offensive. I shit you not.
Facebook can get away with anything it posts unless it’s really crude like a pantiless crotchshot, which it could if no one reported it. I am sure a lot of straight men would dig it. I almost said something else, but I would have made not only the image I chose offensive, but then the following words could have really thrown you into a tizzyfit. *** that shit up. See? This is before coffee, mind you. I am lucky I caught that at all. So I didn’t make this image, I collect memes and if they don’t have the credit on the image, that is their fucking bad, not mine. I have never read the ToS or P&P on FB, but in my mind of complete common sense, anything posted on Facebook is fair game. It’s the cesspool of image thievery so it would be really dumb to post shit you think is safe from being taken. I also have enough common sense to not claim anything as my own because seriously, that’s dumbshit. Ever checked out Google Image search? Click the camera icon in the search bar and you can upload or drag and drop or image link to find where else on this beautiful web your image is used. It’s fucking fantastical.
That all aside now, I believe grammar is important as much as mathematics and other academic studies. I am not nor do I think I will ever have perfect grammar, after all Crank Masta G has pointed out to me where I can learn the proper use of who or whom. I still don’t understand it and it was elementary level teaching. I do better when I have a live person showing me how something works versus trying to learn it myself. It’s a little funny because before she pointed it out to me ( I was using whom for everything ), I had stolen a book from the library and specifically looked up when to use who and whom and you know what? This textbook said that it has become so blurred that it doesn’t matter which you use, but if you start the article out with one continue using that one to be more cohesive. I reworded that, it was put much simpler, but this is me we are reading. Then it said when in doubt, go with formality meaning use whom.
Over the years the difference between who and whom has blurred. That sentence annoys me to no end. Next they are going to say your and you’re are blurred and to make the article less confusing, use your. People will get YOUR meaning on which one YOU’RE using based on the context of your sentence.
Do people notice the inflection between the two when the words are spoken? Your rhymes with Door. Your door is open. You can say the previous out loud to make sure I am correct. You’re rhymes with lure (give or take on your accent). Say it: You’re going to hand me that lure. That is one way to figure the difference if your primary way of learning is auditory. Or even secondary. Or even an ape. Apes are quick learners, no doubt.
I don’t understand articles and ENGLISH TEACHERS (they taught regular, that was the year I wanted to do less work and I regretted that. Honors was full so I couldn’t switch, and I was not teacher’s pet that year) that do not feel that spelling and grammar are important. Aren’t you curious why great literature is not younger than 50 (guessing, no research done on my part there) years old. The schools are still teaching the same literary works that my mother AND my mother’s mother were taught.
It greatly appalls me that education is becoming more and more slack. You have people believing that fundamental education is not important. I don’t understand why knowing
(x^2 – 16)(x – 3)^2 + 9x^2 = 0
is more important than being able to properly communicate through reading and writing. It’s laziness on everyone’s behalf.
On mathematics, my mother was livid when she saw I was learning simple math by using what they called “manipulatives” that I called “blocks”. Apparently when my mother went to school they used flash cards and taught the whole reason behind why the answer was what it was. Why did my school system do this? So they wouldn’t have to hold so many kids back. Little Tommy can’t figure out 2 + 3 equals so we may as well make teaching easier so we don’t have to put more effort in on teaching Little Tommy.
Simplifying the education one ascertains in childhood to college is not a good idea in support for the economy; local, national or global. Yes, you can blame the banks, Wall Street, BP oil, and/or giving-millions-to-other-nations-who(m?)-hate-our-guts-but-continue holding-their-hands-out for the U.S. economy being piss poor. But don’t forget to look at education. Don’t fail to see the dummies that are coming out of our school systems.
Obv. before 9/11, but still a valid truth.
So for you people out their questioning the importance of grammar and spelling, they are fundamental to continuing education. Just as important as knowing 2+3 in order to know (x^2 – 16)(x – 3)^2 + 9x^2 = 0.
Yes, janitor and trash pick-up jobs and all other jobs that do not require extensive spelling and grammar knowledge are important. I am not saying they aren’t. I am saying that Scientists, Writers, Educators, etc. who know the importance of fundamental education are extremely important. And to come out with a Teaching, English, or Journalism degree and say to a classroom full of high school kids that spelling is not important is absurd.
Also and lastly, you can learn spelling and basic grammar just by one simple thing, reading. Not reading on Facebook or personal blogs, but articles, magazines, books, and even newspapers/sites.
Related articles
- Verbs Some musings on grammar (hoprea.wordpress.com)
- Grammar Revolution Anyone? (cowpasturechronicles.wordpress.com)
- Everyone’s a Poet (ourhumbleopinions.wordpress.com)
- Literacy privilege, or, why grammar nazis are dicks (boingboing.net)
I before E, except after C.
You rock CB!
Aww MB you know how to make a girl feel special.
I was a wee bit apprehensive posting this one because I am very sensitive to that history, but it seems everyone throws around ‘grammar nazi’ without a second thought, so I upped the ante as per usual. 
Excellent post! This, however, doesn’t change the fact that it’s “S” not “Z”
I don’t know, Mr. Z. Fantasise is another I came across last night and that seriously looks all wrong.
Well, it’s sealed. For the rest of your natural life you’re going to think about me whenever you see an “S” instead of a “Z.” We will never meet, but we’re now in an unbreakable binary (spelling) orbit. That’s kinda’ cool
I knew you had ulterior motives for kicking around my blog.
Most other bloggers run for cover when a little friction comes about.
You’re a blogger to watch, my friend! You have a fearless attitude that I admire.
And that opening pic blew my mind!
Yeah, it blew mine also when I saw it on my FB news feed! And this comment just had me laughing for a good 90.5 seconds. Yeah, a real LoLz. I do appreciate your admiration as I admire your humor and way with words.
I’m just glad that I taught Freshman Comp before texting. Egad! It was shameful seeing those poor kids who had graduated high school not knowing how to capitalize, use basic punctuation, correct sentence structure, or how to form a coherent paragraph. And I won’t even get into spelling. Yet these kids graduated? What?
Here’s another sad thing. I was an education major for a while, and there are a lot of stupid people going into teaching because it’s summers off! Woot. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some great teachers out there. But when the education profs encourage you to kiss butt rather than actually do the work, that’s just plain sad.
And it goes without saying that I agree with Mr. Carlin, as always.
Amen! I also find it funny because of summers off when most the teachers I have had have second jobs and work full time during the summer, or teach summer school because the pay blows.
You should see how many memes I have of George Carlin. It could take a couple years to sprinkle them out through my blog.
I don’t like spelling, but it was something that I had to learn. I remember way back to the days before spell check made spelling much easier.
Yeah, I do understand people have shortcomings. Math is far from my strong suit, and that math example I used? Google. I have no idea how all those numbers, letters and symbols equal zero, but who am I to question it’s validity.
I get appalled when teachers get lazy and validate the student’s shortcoming as being OK, just letting the student believe that they’re never going to get it and don’t need to learn it. It’s disgusting.
I particularly enjoy the annoyed reactions I receive when pointing out a very basic grammatical error (mind you, I don’t do it ALL the time) and am usually asked, “who cared?” Um, excuse me, YOU SHOULD! For fucks sake how can you not take your native language seriously and be content with saying “your cool” or “I like when your mad.” I weep in private for these people. I cry tears of shame and contempt. How dare you thrash your tongue about as if you’re some lolly-gagging preschooler shitting your pants and laughing about it.
Yeah I have a friend that was very resistant to my corrections and eventually came around and WANTS to be corrected. Sometimes people need a little coaxing to realize that not caring does make you look ignorant and a lot of the time, like a big lot of the time, these people are not ignorant. They just haven’t been taught correctly and were allowed to slide all too often.
http://knockedoverbyafeather.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/very-inspired/
Oh, that cat… ! =) Wiping up the coffee I spilled on the table, I read your post, and thought it FANTASTIC ! You never fail to amuse, entertain or educate us, CB. =)
Hey, lady, there is absolutely no good excuse for abuse of perfectly good coffee like that!
Thank you so much for the kind compliments, I think I’m a bit smitten right now.
What can I say, I read only the BEST blogs, you know. As my Psychology professor used to say, modesty is best left to those without talent… ! =) =) I am full of it today, must be the lack of coffee !
The end is near: cursive is no longer being taught in schools, and in a few years maybe handwriting won’t be either becuase every child will have thier own personal computer/tablet they take with them from class to class; words that weren’t words five years ago are being added to dictionaries because it is easier to add them to the official language than to try and correct the wrong behavior that has become so pervasive; when I was learning math in high school our school had adopted a group teaching method where rather than the teacher teaching we broke into groups and figured out the problems on our own – with the teacher providing guidance as needed, of course – I had to take math at the local community college to get a proper education. We keep dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator and before we know it we will be living in a world like the one represented in the movie “Idiocracy.”
I never mastered cursive writing. Me to cursive is me to drawing. I can visualize exactly how it should look and my hand gets a mind of it’s own and is a rebelling little jerkface. I am staunch in my belief that it’s telling me to fuck off.
With that said, because I am a hypocrite, I do not think cursive is important. What I DO find important is penmanship period. All too often kids are able to get away with writing a backward F. That drives me nuts to see a coworkers handwriting and see that backward F. Mind you when they drew a correct F it looked like a preschool F so I let it go. When kids are practicing letters and sentences, they should be shown the exact way and it should be practiced and enforced. My nephew is 9 and I love him to death and I think everything he does is better than average no question. But that boy has terrible penmanship. He’s a year from being a double digit midget, his writing should be a little more legible by my standards.
On language and dictionary. I feel things like that should always evolve. When I see someone using words that are practically extinct, I mean no one uses them hardly ever, or they’re using obscure words all the time as opposed to sparsely — it’s like go into theatre and playwright. Shakespeare created his own damn language and he chose to do so in the perfect medium. But you’re right, New-age slang terms should not be added into Merriam’s Webster (which has severely disappointed me lately). Slang does not belong as a formal entry in the dictionary. It should be a “slang synonym” if entered at all.
Also, I was so bad at math that I was in a state college in remedial algebra and dropped the class because the teacher kept saying “you’ll remember this from high school” and the rest of the students did and I was not about to be that kid with their hand up every 2 minutes. From 3rd – 12th grade I was allowed to slide and because of that I was so messed up I couldn’t understand an algebra for dummies class.
That’s why I feel how I do on education.
Uh oh, I don’t think you’d be very happy with my handwriting either… it’s legible… by me… on a good day. And that’s about it. Penmanship was the only class in elementary school that I consistently got C’s in, while I excelled at everything else. I guess I never put much emphasis on it, never saw the importance of someone else being able to read my words as long as I could. For papers and things that would be graded through the rest of my schooling I printed and wrote in cursive well enough so the instructor could read them, but since then I’d say my legibility has degraded to worse than it was in elementary school. But, how often do I use it? Which, I guess is hypocrtical of me, considering my annoyance/aggrevation that cursive isn’t being taught in schools any more… but, I’m okay with being a hypocrite.
Well, as an English teacher I feel that grammar is really important; in fact, we talk about it all the time (teachers) and try to figure out how to teach something that really isn’t that…exciting.
I don’t think the lines between who and whom have blurred. Who is the subject. Whom is the object.
To “whom” did you write that letter? Who wrote the letter?
Whatever reference book you saw was not a good one. I also think that Internet communication is slowly becoming more aware of grammar. No longer is it acceptable to ignore punctuation and grammar in emails, and I really do believe that people who Tweet or FB with tons of errors look look like sloppy idiots. And they don’t get retweeted.
The person who commented above about “dumbing it down” is voicing the fears we all have; however, we are ever raising the bar with rigorous standards that expect students to know much, much more than they were expected to know 20 years ago. I think we have to remember that there is a learning curve for teachers. Many teachers aren’t a part of the Internet age (I am thinking of the last ten years) and don’t know a thing about texting or apps. So they’ve been bamboozled by a culture of students who think differently, process information differently, write differently, etc. Teachers spend a lifetime trying to adapt…so don’t think we’re trying to dumb it down.
Anyway, I applaud you for caring about grammar.
That’s another topic that I am feeling all “WTF” about. What a child needs to know to enter kindergarten is ridiculous. I do not say this lightly. If they need to be that knowledgeable on their letters and numbers to basically the point of all that kindergarten teacher needs to teach is reading and addition and subtracting, then the educational system needs to start at preschool. Preschool teachers make the lowest salary than all the rest (in my area) and that shouldn’t be the case. My friend was on the voucher program with her son (my nephew was also, but kind of doesn’t count since he went to a school for autism) and it was a nice preschool in an affluent area and now entering into one of the best elementary schools in our area, he was extremely behind in the beginning of the year. Not because he is a slow learner, but because he wasn’t taught to kindergarten standards. Luckily he lives in the district he does because he is doing very well now.
Since I also live in Florida we had FCAT. All that is taught from 3rd-5th is FCAT. Yes, we need standardized testing, but it should not be the only curriculum taught and every teacher complains about it. In a year or 2 they are doing away with that test and implementing one that will actually be more difficult. Increasing the standards and letting kids slip through the cracks because all they need to know is what’s on that test is no way to educate any child.
I wouldn’t want to have a job like yours. It’s hell of a rewarding job to teach a child. I get thrilled when I am able to show my nephew or my friends kid something and see on their face when it clicks. But the politics in teaching… wow. I commend you for your profession. I really appreciate you taking the time to read and comment. It means a lot to have someone in your profession be able to share from their side. Thank you.
Oh and I wasn’t saying teachers are dumbing it down. I was saying the board of directors and administration side. I don’t know how it works where you live, but the lesson plans given to students here have little room for customizing.
I heart this so much. I’ve been an editor for 20+ years and I don’t think a day has gone by when I haven’t gotten homicidal over some egregious grammatical error.
Aww, Madame Weebles, that means so much to me that you like it.
Hope I don’t have any egregious grammatical errors now or later from me. I am very open to corrections, though so if you see one you can comment/email me anytime.