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?
It’s so nice to read something of substance! I think many post things just to participate. I’m like you with the dumbing down of grammar. The first thing that bothered me, (don’t know why) was when we were told you only need to put one space after a period. Isn’t that petty of me? Then when people started writing in all lowercase letters! What?! Not to mention writing words in shortcuts like “ur”for “your”. It still catches my attention when some spells “your” instead of you’re inaccurately. I feel like they are uneducated. (I know that is judgemental of me.) 😬
What about no more cursive writing?!! How will future generations read the original Constitution?!
Oh well, I guess we go on being ourselves as we were educated. I’m not giving in to these restylings of the English language and grammar. I just can’t. I love accuracy.
I loved reading what you had to say!
I love reading your blog and I need to use proper grammar as I am lacking of .