My whole life I’ve been a grammar-Nazi.
Somehow, as a kid in elementary school, grammar rules and mechanics came easy to me. I quickly caught on to concepts like subject/verb agreements, direct/indirect objects, and prepositional phrases.
I not only held myself to a high standard of using the English language, but I also had high expectations of others.
Living most of my life in Southern Utah and Eastern Idaho, I’ve associated with a lot of down-home folk, who are unaware of many rules and expectations. They mostly just speak and write as they’ve been brought up.
One misuse that has driven me crazy is: “these dishes need washed,” “the lawn needs mowed,” “this floor needs vacuumed,” “the cat wants fed,” “that baby needs changed,” etc. Technically, they are deleting the infinitive. The correct phrasing would be either “these dished need to be washed” or “these dishes need washing.”
Another one that grates on me is “we seen him at the reunion ” instead of “we saw him at the reunion;” or “we was just sittin’ down for lunch” instead of “we were just sitting down for lunch.’ The pronoun and verb need to be in agreement.
Much of social media is written. In the past, when reading a blog or Facebook post, my perfectionistic self would focus and obsess on spotting errors: your vs. you’re, their vs. there vs. they’re, loose vs. lose, should of vs. should’ve, etc. I prided myself on being able to catch someone in an incorrect use, and then mentally (and sometime publicly) berated them for their lack.
This was all brought to my attention when I was listening again to a conference talk. In a recent General Conference, one of the Brethren gave a talk about how stumbling blocks can complicate and confuse us in our growth toward becoming like the Lord.
At one point he mispronounced “grievous.” I immediately began a mental conversation about how an apostle should know better, and that someone should’ve caught it in the teleprompter rehearsal, and that people lose credibility when they mispronounce something before a large audience, etc., etc. Meanwhile, because of my mental analysis I didn’t hear what he was teaching for a while after that. I missed out because of my inability to overlook the mistake.
Ironically, the very concept he was trying to make was about how a stumbling block can prevent someone from progressing. It was not lost on me.
I’m also aware that I typically can’t see my own typographical errors. (You may have noticed some in my posts.) So if I expect others to be nonjudgmental of my writing, I need to reciprocate.
Although my OCD toward correct grammar has been significant throughout my life, in recent months/years, it has begun to diminish. As I’m recovering, I’ve noticed that it doesn’t affect me as often or as strongly. I’m able to more easily just let it go.
To be continued . . . with Part 26
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