Gerunds, Appositives, and Participles, Oh My!

I knew it would happen today. I’m experiencing my first day of epic post-resignation homesickness. Or is that worksickness?

Sure, I’ve looked back wistfully on occasion over the past month, like the day I overdosed on Oreo cookies and realized that this would never have happened at my old job because they would have helped me eat them, or the night my reading lamp became possessed and provided me with an awesome story to tell to…nobody. Snif. (Possible blog topic for Supernatural Day, whenever that is).

Today, however, I miss my editing friends in the basement of Hochmuth Hall more than ever, because I know what I’d be doing right now if I were there: poking fun at people who correct me and say, “no, no, you mean if I was there.”

Well, to be honest, we poked fun every day. In fact, for an editor, the only thing that can evoke a more hearty guffaw than coming across a sentence like “Venezuela is a major consumer of Cuban, health, intelligence, and security professionals” is reading it aloud to other editors.

We’re wired like that.

Thanks Albert, for risking life and limb to capture this exquisite specimen.

We risk causing vehicle accidents to take pictures of awful road signs.

We are puppets to our pesky little internal budinskis who cannot let a conversation continue unchecked after someone says, “This is for Sue and I” or, “If you have any questions, bring them to Pete or myself.”

We’ve lost friends over this compulsion—both Pete and Himself. Still, we auto-correct.

Today, however, we have license to parade our predicate prowess, and to shout boldly from the hill tops:

That and which are not the same!

Or,

Pardon me, but your modifiers are squinting.

Or my favorite:

Semi-colons are more than just winky-face emoticons!

So, what’s the big occasion? Only the most important day in the evolution of syntax…it’s Grammar Day of course! The only national observance identified by an imperative: March Fourth!

National Grammar Day was established in 2008 by Martha Brockenbrough, founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) and author of Things That Make Us [Sic].

Over the years the observation has grown in popularity, particularly among the editing crowd.

This is a day for editors to sit back, nosh on grammar crackers and cereal commas, and reminisce about the ones that didn’t get away…like, “the damn formed when the mountain collapsed during the earthquake,” or, “the ship-to-shore landing vessels were being acquired to compliment the rest of the fleet.” (Grammar, word choice, whatever you call it, it’s funny).

This is a day to go out to the hallway and stare appreciatively at the colorful and seductive Comma Chameleon, which was posted to lure passersby into accidently learning about comma use and abuse.  (I guess you could consider it the cheesy-broccoli of grammardom; some folks get through six or seven rules before they catch on that they’re reading about proper punctuation.)

It is also a day of recognition. Writers, I’m guessing you all have someone to thank for ensuring your last missive didn’t go out proclaiming, “Ships are used when floods and tsunamis produce disaster situations that require their ability to arrive by sea instead of by destroyed or water-submerged roads.” (Actual submission, you’re welcome very much).

If you haven’t been saved yet, it’s only because you still aren’t published.

So spread the word. Kiss an editor. Rescue a dangling modifier. Try it, it’s fun.

And correct your children. They’ll thank you for it one day. My reward came Saturday night, when I caught my son trying to rub the apostrophe off a white board announcing “CD’s for sale.”

I was so proud.

I miss you, editors. March fourth!

  😉

For more information about Grammar Day, visit the following website: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/national-grammar-day?utm_source=GG20140304&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=grammargirl#sthash.g5Q70k7y.dpuf

Tags: editing, Grammar Day, writing