Grammar and punctuation

Okay, I may be a little bit of a geek.

I am not cool, like this guy.

When I was a kid, I used to correct other people's grammar... like adults. See, I didn't really think it was a big deal. I was a kid. Other people had been correcting my grammar since I learned to talk. How was I supposed to know that kids aren't supposed to correct adults' grammar? Anyway, it apparently really ticked off one of my aunts... partly because I was right all the time.

I did pretty well in school. English wasn't my strongest suit; I just couldn't get the hang of those essays until my last semester of high school when my social studies teacher finally taught us how to write a position paper. (Where was he at the start of high school?) But I did well in college and I'm pretty sure my proper use of the semicolon is one of the reasons I faired so well. (If you're wondering how to properly use the semicolon, it's really pretty easy: just take two related sentences-it's nice if they're short-and stick them together. Instead of separating them with a period, use a semicolon. See the second sentence of this paragraph for an example.)

Simon in his Bumbo chair (let's face it, y'all really just want to see pictures of my cute kids)

I also did a fair bit of copy editing at my job at Briercrest in the Advancement Department. I was responsible for finding mistakes in a good number of the publications that went out from there. So, if you found a mistake in one of them while I was working there, you're either wrong or... well, I missed one. It should be noted that I was away one month when a pretty large publication went out and I didn't actually get to look at that one. My supervisor had the ultimate call on everything, but I like to think I was a pretty important step in the process.

And Dan bought me this book that we heard about on CBC radio one time: Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Here is what's written on the back:

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns the the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So, punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

I've never read a funnier book on punctuation. I'm not sure I've actually read any other book on punctuation, but it's still a pretty funny book.

Anyways, Zoe is not quite correcting my grammar... yet. Instead, she finishes my sentences. I'm not sure why when we get older that we're slower getting simple words out of our brains and onto our tongues, but sometimes I'll say to Zoe, "Can you get up in your... in your..."
"Seat?" she chimes in, cheerfully.
"Yes. Seat. Thank you."
Still, it's mostly funny and actually helps move things along instead of her waiting for me to finally get the word "seat" out before she sits down. I'm just a little afraid I'm raising a little mini me and I'm going to get a good taste of my own medicine.

My sentence finisher


Bonus pictures of my kids.

Love that yawn.