Confessions of a word nerd

There are few things that annoy me more than bad grammar.

Now that I've said that, picky people in Blogland will be looking for mistakes in this post, but that's OK. Leave your name and contact. I want to connect with kindred spirits. I just want to know you're really out there.

I grit my teeth whenever I hear "between you and I." My eyes roll involuntarily when I hear something like, "Mother left a bundle to my sister and I." If your grammar is that bad, you can't be trusted with an inheritance.

And I really lose it when I read about someone who wants to loose a bad habit.

Unneeded "quote" marks drive me batty; and if you want to make me suffer, tell me about someone who has went on to become an English teacher. And if you use the word "irregardless" I swear I'll think long and hard about kneecapping you.

I nearly freeze with anger when I hear someone say he took a chicken out of the freezer to unthaw. If you want to unthaw the damn bird, leave it in the freezer!

Whenever I hear news broadcasters make grammar errors, I wonder what the world is coming to. These are supposedly educated people. They speak for a living. They should know their verb tenses and how to make pronouns agree with nouns. And by now everyone should know the difference between to, two, and too, their, they're and there, its and it's and your and you're. It ain't rocket surgery!

Life as a word nerd is challenging. My tongue is constantly sore from my biting it to keep from making an ass of myself correcting someone's grammar. I may be anal retentive, but I do try to be polite. Besides, I can imagine that constant correction would be very annoying. I have other ways to be annoying that are much more fun.

So if anyone is reading this and thinking "Yeah! I agree!" or "Right on!," then do let me know you're out there so I'll know I am not alone in this world.

And if all of this has whizzed right over your head, and you're wondering what all the fuss is about — Yeah! I'm talking about you!