The Grammar Police

My mother would be so proud.

You see, when I was growing up, my mother was a stickler for proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Not that she was rigidly against us ever using slang (or using it herself), but she made sure to drill it into us so that when we were called upon to use proper language, we were fully able, and completely comfortable in doing so. To this day, I agonize when I can’t properly express myself without ending a sentence with a preposition – even in cases of “accepted usage.” I could be reading the most engaging book in the world, with fabulous character development, a tight story line, and everything else that goes into a good story, yet if the author makes too many glaring errors, it takes me completely out of the book. I swear, I should be a copy editor. One of the easiest ways to get on my last nerve, is to write “should of” instead of “should’ve” or “should have.”

Now, you must understand, I LOVE MY JOB. I really do. I might have a few bad days, I might be frustrated with certain policies, procedures, and unrealistic performance standards. I may come home with “stupid customer tricks.” There may be a few people around here that I just avoid on general principal. But I really do LOVE MY JOB.

That said. What I don’t love, is reading through other people’s case notes and seeing horrible, horrible affronts to my grammar sensibilities. Some day, when I finally crack up (or win the lottery) I will run through the building buck naked, screaming, “Customers are not ORIENTATED, they are ORIENTED!!! We do not RESEND sanctions, we RESCIND them!!! SUBJECTS AND VERBS MUST AGREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”

Maybe not naked. I guess it depends on who’s in the building that day.