My Grammar Obsession

You may not know this about me, but I really like getting my grammar and spelling correct. I have even been known to send properly spelled and punctuated text messages to my friends who invariably respond with something like, "k cu l8tr". Digispeak or whatever you want to call it is the bane of my existence.

Knowing this, it will probably not surprise you that I proofread my previous post at least three times before finally publishing, twice after (making changes each time) and editing yet again today upon discovery of "their" in place of the correct "they're". It's a little sad really.

I had a professor who forbade us to use "like" in class. He handed out these bumper stickers that said, "This is a like free zone." Every time someone used 'verbal ellipses' as he called them, he'd just look at them and say, "try that again." It made us think about what we wanted to say before we started speaking, and resulted in better answers all around. Every so often I go on a quest to eliminate 'verbal ellipses' from my own speech, and since my language has become saturated with 'likes', 'ums', and 'you knows', I'm considering embarking on one such quest in the near future. Care to join me? It's amazing how intelligent one sounds when the pointless noise goes away.