In a stage whisper, Mrs.
Grammar Person explains that although she is your true friend, spell-check is not.
Spell-check is fickle and delights in trickery. He will make you believe that it's
morning when, in fact, you're in mourning, or that you should waver when you are seeking a waiver. He doesn't care if your simple please turns into multiple pleas, and he will most likely desert you if you ask for dessert.
Mrs. G.P. wishes to remind you
for whom the bell tolls (if you must ask, it tolls for thee). When in doubt as
to whether to use who or whom, simply substitute the word him. If him will do nicely, then the word you want is whom. Mrs. G.P. shudders to think that you would even consider
writing "For he the bell
tolls." She keeps her smelling salts handy, just in case.
Being an agreeable person,
herself, Mrs. G.P. insists that all her nouns and verbs also agree; therefore,
a swarm of bees searches for honey,
but the two straggler bees search on
their own. How sweet the sound of proper grammar!
While Mrs. G.P. has nothing
but admiration for writers who seek perfection, she cautions that nobody is
perfect (except for her, of course). To that end, she cautions you about using
the pronoun "I" when the
word you seek is "me". To write
that "the teacher allows Joe and I
to go to the playground" is tantamount to writing, "the teacher
allows "I" to go to the
playground." Whenever she sees this transgression, Mrs. G.P. slams the
offending book shut, never to be opened again.
Now, it is time to bid
farewell to Mrs. Grammar Person, but, before she takes her leave, she asks you to
remember that: it is always darkest before the dawn, when the going gets tough,
the tough get going, you should keep your chin up and, if you don't stop using clichés,
Mrs. Grammar Person will march back here and rap your knuckles with a ruler!
Once she is satisfied that you
have learned your lesson, Mrs. G.P. gently pats you on the head and heads off to
the library, casually tossing out her final words of wisdom , words that shake
your very foundation: "Remember, my dears, you can end a sentence with a preposition and you can split an infinitive!"
This was a fun little piece - gave me a giggle over tea.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Grammar Person is delighted that you relish the rules of grammar as much as she does. Sensing that you are a kindred spirit, Mrs. G.P. would be honored to sip tea with you at some future date.
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