6.04.2008

blogging, myspace, bad grammar, books about punctuation

this is an homage to an old blog from my myspace page. the above title is split about half and half between things i like and things i don't. i'll let you figure it out.


Thursday, April 05, 2007

My First Blog
Current mood: artistic

So, I've decided to enter into the world of blogging. I'm currently reading a book about a woman in NYC who embarked on a project in which she cooked every single recipe from Julia Child's cookbook, Master the Art of French Cooking. And, to document her progress, she wrote a blog daily about her adventures. In so doing, she became a semi-famous author, and no longer has to work in an office. Being the complete delusionary and optimist that I am, I am fully convinced that if I start a blog, I, too, will be able to quit my horrible job and become a professional blogger. And make millions.

I decided that, in order to spice up my myspace page, I needed to fill out one of those hideously long surveys so I could display my wit and charm through clever answers to pointless questions that no one would actually ever read. Well, I quickly became disheartened when, upon review of just a mere sample of what's out there, I realized that not only are these surveys hideously long, but they are hideous. I know about 99.9% of these surveys were written by high school sophomores, but really, what is this world coming to? The typos were enough to drive even the worst grammarian into insanity. It's painful. Really. There is little in this world that irks me more than 1) poor spelling 2) poor grammar and 3) the misuse of the apostrophe.

Let me make a side note here: if you want to read a truly amusing book that will make you laugh aloud, read "Eats Shoots and Leaves". Who knew a book dedicated to punctuation and the the misuse of these necessary little dots, dashes, and squiggles could be so entertaining. Oh, but it is.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. While I was scanning these surveys to decide which one would really capture the essence of everything "Emily" I would literally flinch and make a small gasping sound everytime I saw one of these heinous typos. Needless to say, I started hyperventilating. It's lucky I escaped without passing out. I just couldn't bring myself to allow a, quote-unquote, word like "tooken" to appear on a page that is associated with me.

Maybe one day I will be able to bear the process of sorting through all the millions of surveys out there to find one that is not too long and asks obnoxious questions such as, "What was your crush wearing last Tuesday(chuckle chuckle snort)?" And maybe, even maybe, I will be able to bring myself to, heaven forbid, allow a typo to appear on my page. I'm sorry. Does anyone have a paper bag handy? I'm feeling slightly dizzy.

hi. me again. in the present. i have added the link to a chart that demonstrates my exact feelings on poor grammar and somatic symptoms to such.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

One of the reasons I hate watching the local news is that they have the rolling headlines at the bottom of the screen. I don't hate that they have headlines. I hate that they have so many typos and incomplete sentences.

Trena Jo said...

I love your hate for poor grammar and I love that you blog about it using all small letters. That's what I heart.

Stephanie :) said...

Trena cracked me up! I just spent the last 2 days at work in grammar classes. It is true! I learned what a split infinitive is. Didn't learn what a dangling participle is, though. Most of it was DUH! But a lot was stuff I didn't learn or didn't remember learning. The 2nd most biggest wig at work thinks it's okay to split infinitives because if they do it on Star Trek (to boldly go....), then it must be right. How funny is that?!?