What was that again?

You can’t make this stuff up.

Rather than get all bent out of shape about it, or call it a pet peeve, I have to laugh when I see or hear what people do with the English language, both spoken and written, to make it even more mystifying. It’s no wonder that new immigrants to Canada get confused.

Bear in mind that I was a high school teacher for thirty-two years, and that I taught both French and English for much of that time, so it is only fitting that my eye picks out these gaffes. You don’t mark eighty research essays miss the syntactical errors, misspellings and incorrect word usages if you’re any good at your job. These days, however, my lips are not pursed in consternation as though I had been the one who failed to teach the writer or speaker the proper way; rather I am often chuckling and shaking my head when I read a really good example. It makes me wish I had had the presence of mind to write down and save more of the gems from my teaching career.

There are no editors on Facebook. In fact, correcting others on their comments or observations will get you called a grammar nazi or worse. So I don’t. Not on the page, that is. I fix it in my head. Can’t help it.  I do the same when someone misspeaks. Wait. I do correct my son who thanks me for it, usually. I’ve noticed that he is a lot like me when he sees Caesar misspelled as Ceasar on a menu – he has a mini seizure, rolls his eyes and points it out.

So it’s a thankless position to be in, you see. No one applauds your efforts to keep the English language protected. No one except the person who sends you his draft of an essay, resumé or story to be proofread!

What a source of free amusement language misuse is!

Commenting on Facebook about a recent court sentence, the writer said it was “president-setting”. I laughed out loud. On the same topic another poster observed that we don’t have judges with the “convection” to hand down stiffer sentences. A little more heat transfer, Your Honour, please.

My glee knows no bounds when people use no capitals or punctuation whatsoever, leaving the reader to guess the gist of  “she got one too bad you didn’t come over shes mad you know”. You work on that one.

And no worries, I’ve done my time in the red-pencil universe. I may wince now and then, but all in all, I’m just smiling and loving how people express themselves.