Please spell the words on my tombstone correctly.

Today I actually corrected a cereal box. I mean, I took out the blue ink pen and wrote in a comma and a hyphen and crossed out a period. I wish this neurotic demand for correct grammar and punctuation would cross over into clean-house-neurosis. I am happy to report, however, that following my latest confession I actually cleaned my house--and very nicely and sweetly asked John to mop. :)

While we're on the subject of punctuation and grammar, however, I just feel the need to get a few pet peeves off my chest (because I know that you are all as excited about correct usage as I am):

1. The use of its and it's--I know this is a tricky concept for people and that even the most educated make this mistake, but it really gets to me. It's translates to "it is" (as in "Boy, it's annoying when people use it's wrong) and its is used to show possession (The naked tree misses its leaves). There is no such thing as its'.

2. Unnecessary apostrophes--Everyone has seen the signs: Photo's taken here. Bananas' on sale today. This is probably my biggest pet peeve. I want to scream when I see these signs; I want to go up to their creators and demand an explanation for those apostrophes. Why are they there? What purpose do they serve? Ahhh!

3. The gradual disappearance of punctuation from the English language-- I realize that things have to change. Once upon a time, all nouns were capitalized instead of only proper, and everyday words like "today" were hyphenated (to-day)--and I think we will all agree that our evolution away from such practices brought good and necessary changes. However, why don't people use commas like they used to? And what's happened to the good old semi-colon, anyway? And let's not even talk about the fate of the hyphen...

Okay, that's probably enough complaining for one day. Thanks so much for indulging my fantasy that other people actually care to hear my grammar grievances. God will surely bless you.

Much of this is due to my own pent-up rage against illiteracy, but I've also been reading the fabulous book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, which has surely only served to exacerbate my punctuation perfection issues. She's much worse of a punctuation nazi than I am, although I must say I wish she used more commas. She seems to be a follower of the fewer -commas- the- better rule. Alas.

I would like to end with a nicely-written sentence about writing, which I like for the semi-colons and the colon and dislike for for the unnecessary comma splice and sexist language. But, hey, who am I to judge the quote-worthy?


"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop." ~Vita Sackville West