ACCEPTING CHANGE

Even New Grammar Rules

Pass the bottle of Pepto Bismol.   I have to change again…

When I was young, change was exciting.   But as I’ve grown older, it takes me a little  bit longer to embrace new things.  Matter-of-fact, it’s  kind of amusing right now that I’m mourning the loss of the apostrophe and the Oxford comma.

For a retired English teacher  like me who demanded  that pronouns agree with their  antecedents,  the “singular they” kinda makes me nauseous. Not knowing if I’m talking about one person or more --  or if it’s a man or woman is definitely messing with my psyche.

Thank heavens, I’ve  gotten  over  the urge to run over the street signs that say  “Drive Slow.”   I guess I’ve finally accepted the death of the LY that  I used to think went on the ends of adverbs.  I have to admit, I  still say a little pray for patience each time I board a plane.  I take a deep breath to assure the flight attendant’s safety  when I hear “Move quick to the back of the plane.”   

I  have faith that I’ll soon stop wanting to choke the newspaper editor who killed off the apostrophe to save space.   Oh, did you  know you need to use % instead of writing “percent” out now? 

Real stomach problems — Jonah in the whale at Sight & Sound Theatre in Ronk, Pa.

I  have  to take  a huge swig of the chalky pink stuff  to stomach  the new  “feel-good” directives:

You can start sentences with the conjunctions “And” or “But” because it softens the thought.

You can end a sentence with a preposition if it feels right.

Oh, I’m definitely grateful The New York Times told me to quit using periods in text messages.  I didn’t know  “To younger people, putting a period at the end of a casually written thought could mean that you’re raring for a fight.”   Yikes!

Several years ago,  I read a fascinating book written by two Harvard professors called The Fourth Turning. It describes how history is cyclical following predictable patterns.  According to Howell and Strauss,  we are in a Fourth Turning right now – an unraveling period, a crumbling of our institutions and rules  as we know them, creating a new civic order.  They say this crisis period should end sometime in the 2020’s. Let’s hope so.  I’m getting dizzy from so many things spinning out of control.   Here is a summary of their interesting  ideas: https://www.hustleescape.com/book-summary-the-fourth-turning-strauss-howe/

 Life, itself,  teaches us change is inevitable.  Psychologists  assure us that after we go through all the growing pains that It ‘ll Be OK.   So, I guess we just need to  take a deep breath and raise our glasses  of  Pepto Bismol.  Here’s  to a better life!    Cheers!    

And lets eat grandma after we find the right utensils to BBQ with  

That  definitely softens the thought and feels right.   Doesn’t it?!   *Wink

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“I really feel for the trees this time of year.  At least when I went through ‘the change,’ nothing fell off!”   ~  Maxine

In Ohio — all four seasons at once

ARE YOU HAVING TROUBLE CHANGING WITH THE TIMES?