Grammar Ain't Easy
During lunch yesterday, Caesar and I got to talking about our college majors. HIs was Social Work, while mine was the more obtuse French. (I say obtuse because -- and this is twentysome years later -- I found no job whatsoever that would require a degree in French. I'm not sure it was such a good idea.) I told him that throughout high school and college, I never encountered a problem either speaking, reading or understanding French. But my grammar sucked. My papers were always returned marked up with A's and B's for the ideas but C's for the actual language used. Looking back, even though I tried my best to know when to use the accent aigu instead of the accent grave or the dozens of other turns of phrase or word placements, and my sentences seemed more American rather than French.
Our discussion must have clicked something in my head because after we returned to the apartment, I spent an hour writing this post for my company's blog about résumés and spellcheck. And I also thought back to my own posts on this here blog. I'm one of those who will write something and edit along the way, post it, re-read it, go back and edit a misspelled or an incorrectly used word, re-post, re-read, and start the cycle again. I want what I write to be perfect -- or as close to it as can be.
Does anyone else feel like that when they write a blog post or any other form of writing?
Sunday, July 26, 2009
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5 comments:
Yes yes yes
I write and rewrite everything I write. Sometimes I rewrite to clean up errors; sometimes I rewrite to 'polish' the contents.
But I nearly always edit.
I try... but invariably my incredibly poor typing skills usually creep in and remain undetected until after I press "publish". I like to think that I am so "brilliant" that my mind is going faster than my fingers. I like to think that, but it's not true. But it's my story and I'm sticking to it. *grin*
Life's too short to be perfect.
btw, je ne parle pas francais (and I'm not even going to attempt the accents and curliques.
It is pretty obvious from reading my posts that my grammar sucks..but I strive to get the point across. Not so much for perfection.
I feel like that so much so! Almost to a point where it's obsessive-compulsive. But many bloggers say it isn't real when they go back and edit. As if a "first run" with their text says more about how they feel or perhaps how busy they are that they "can't even get the easy things right." By the way, you mis-spelled...... ;-)
I love the detail you gave to resumes. I always type it as resumes in Word with the hope that the red squiggly line will appear and suggest it with the accent marks. Another word is facade and Word suggesting the spelling with the "c" that has the "dangling appendage. :-)
Guilty. I was an English major so I can't help it. Not only do I "redline" my own writing, but much to the dismay of my family, I get all OCD over their writing too. These days, I try very hard to stand back and not touch their work.
Regarding your degree; my best friend through high school and college was a French American. Though US-born, her first language was French. It irked the heck out of me that she took French to complete her foreign language credits, because I saw that as "cheating." That is until I saw her grades. Even though she spoke fluent French and both of her parents demanded that she and her siblings speak only French at home, apparantly she struggled with written grammar. Which made perfect sense to me when I then thought about how bad so many of us are at English and how so much of our youth today could be termed "functionally illiterate." It seems bad grammar can be an international affliction.
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