Good Grammar, Proper Word Choice

I'm usually pretty good with my English.  My grammar is usually spot on... and I'm generally careful with getting the right word in the right place.   It is, after all, a significant part of my job.  Sometimes though, I do fall down... and I have a good friend who enjoys finding such gaffes and sent me a note the other day with a few examples from previous blog entries.  Thanks Tom ;-)

In one, I quoted the phrase from the United Church of Christ, "Don't place a period where God places a comma,"  except I misspelled comma - I wrote "Don't place a period where God places a coma."  And I did it more than once so it wasn't a simple typo.   Tom enjoyed wondering what it looked like when God put people into a prolonged unconscious state.  In another blog I said something like "illicit a response," but of course meant, "elicit a response" although an illicit response might have been entertaining.

So I've been thinking about the wrong words/poor grammar issues that make me cringe... here are a few...

Irregardless - no such word.  It is a conflation of regardless and irrespective.

There, Their, They're.  Three very different words even though they all sound the same.  Use the right one in the right place.  There = a place.  Their =  a possessive, belonging to them.  They're = a contraction of "they are."  Every time I see the wrong one in the wrong place, I can hear my 8th grade English teacher exploding.

The wrong prepositions... don't you just hate it when people confuse the usages of him/he, her/she, me/I ?

What grammar/word choices issues get under your craw?  Can you list some more?  Or write a sentence using a bunch of the ones that make you cringe?

stereotypes & smiles

Stereotypes... they're everywhere.  Sometimes they're helpful, usually they have at least a little basis in fact or history, occasionally they're a bit funny.

Last night we had supper in a little Italian restaurant and the wait staff were wearing t-shirts with the following text on the back...

Heaven is where
The police are British
The cooks are Italians
The lovers are French
The mechanics are Germans
and it is all organized by the Swiss


Hell is where
The cooks are British
The mechanics are French
The lovers are Swiss
The police are Germans
and it is all organized by the Italians.

I have to say is made me smile even though we ate some amazing meals in England and I'm sure each of the other stereotypes clearly fall down in many individual cases... but as general observation, it may ring true... and I did laugh as I ate my chicken parm and drank a bottle of Tuscan wine.

Laughing Jesus

As you enter our church office, the first thing you see is a painting of Jesus in the middle of a deep belly laugh. Virtually everyone comments the first time they see it... "I've never seen a picture of Jesus laughing like that..."

That says something about our theology. We see Jesus in prayer, in tears, dying on a cross, throwing over tables in the Temple, fighting with the religious hierarchy, even with children on his lap or a sheep over his shoulders, but never really laughing, never deeply enjoying anything. If Jesus lives that way, then we think we should too. Life is full of suffering and conflict with little room for joy, wonder, or genuine encounter of the other.

Mt friend Jon, posted this irreverent video the other day. When I saw it on his site, there was only one comment, complaining that a post like this doesn't take Satan seriously enough. I won't go down that path, but I will say the comment missed Jon's point. The folk who made the video obviously have encountered a Christianity in which Jesus never laughs, doesn't enjoy much at all, and interfaith relationships are always framed in terms of violent conflict. What a sad and empty version of the Christian faith that is...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

a harsh light on modern society

I'm not an Apple person. In fact, I don't own even one Apple product. I'm not really sure why as a brand it has such fierce loyalty. All that said, I know that other products have the same cult status

Mapple - The Simpsons
Uploaded by aarplane

silliness

just some fun silliness

hmmm...

finally, a photo of the pot at the end of the rainbow has been traveling around the internet



doesn't that feel just like the way life goes sometimes?

Songwriting

Ever wonder about the songwriting process? How does a songwriter sit down and come up with words, melody, and chord changes that touch our hearts and make our spirits soar? Obviously, the process is different for different songwriters and under different circumstances. Some songwriters are inspired by events in their lives and the songs just flow. Others work at it like a 9-5 job. I remember reading once that Paul Simon has an office that he goes to each day and sits at a desk and writes.

Well, my friend Miche Fambro is a great songwriter and an all around astounding musician. Mick has put this wonderful video up on youtube to give us all some insight into how the process works at least sometimes.