OMG, dont people no too check there grammer!??

This is a shout out to Janet.

I am a lover of words. An admirer of well-spoken, articulately phrased thoughts. I understand that in a creative context, rules-to-live-by in writing and speaking can be thrown to the wind. In real life and conversational situations, a casualness may displace "up-tight," proper language. I know that punctuation can be played with to fit mood, and sentence structure can be toyed with to create emphasis or emotional power.

Here is my horror story. I spent the past two school years trembling from behind my podium in my big-girl-teacher clothes. My brain convulsed in panic over the reality of my situation. "How can these upperclassmen have NO idea which homophone to use? There is a place! Their shows ownership from a group. THREE is a number!! How do they have zero concern for what they sound like vocally OR on paper? How have they skipped through our educational system without the slightest idea of how to organize a sentence or paragraph? AND NOT CARE?? Do they not know that EVERY word they say or write can create a perception from another's point of view?? YES, even welders need to know how to write!!"

I really thought i'd have to get out a pair of Everlast and duke it out when the idea came across the table that we should teach our kids to take notes in "cell-phone" jargon. Gag me with a spoon. If we TEACH and ENCOURAGE that - then all hope is lost. It's way too difficult to cure that problem! Of course, I'm just that old-soul in a mid-twenty-year-old's body. I completely spell out EACH word in it's entirety when I write my complete sentence riddled text messages. What an old hag. Instead of inviting some fellow staffers into the ring, I made it a point to show all of my little pupils the importance of readin' and writin'. We learned homophones, studied sentence structure, watched Schoolhouse Rock, and practiced TONS of other fun little gimmicks that make the world go round. I sure do hope they remember their helping verb song that I passed on from Mrs. Maurer...

NOW, before you bark and spend your time scanning through this post in search of errors, I'll admit I can be a bit loose in my composition. I consider it the luxury of owning (yes, I went there) my own beautifully framed piece of paper that proclaims that the five years of college tuition were not in vain, and I have in fact mastered the universe with a degree in English. It gives me the right to be the authority. Ha, that really was a joke. I hate to proofread, too. I'll admit it.

I understand that social networking can persuade all of us to dip into our elementary lexicon at times. (Lexicon = mental dictionary. Probably one of my top five words. I'm obsessed.) We may even get in a rush once in a while and abbreviate a few words in a text message.

With all of this highly intellectual chit-chat in mind, I think it's time to introduce a new scale to our beloved Facebook. Can we grade our friends on their ability/inability to communicate with others? Zero being "I rite like a litle kid" and ten being all of us who are able to use our words like big kids. Oh, and we can spell grammar. YES, GRAMMAR. It's not grammer people. Before you get on someone's butt about intellect, brains, wisdom, education, intelligence, or smarts you must be able to spell the one word that we all learned so early!!

It's oh-so terribly sad, but our words define us. I'm sorry if you don't believe it. If you write like an uneducated person people will notice. If your status update is littered with misspelled and misused words, people will notice. Same goes for the alternative. Call me biased, but i'd much rather do my dealings with "It's a miserable day today! The weather is nasty, and I'm such a lucky girl to be stuck inside - not!" than mess with "urrrr, the dr again and home to were we have 2b inside w/moms wild childrens!"

Oh, and at this point I'd like to formally thank Mrs. B. It is because of you that I have a deep hatred for all words that are changed to fit cutesie titles. Kreative Kids, you just don't fly with me.

Now watch this video and laugh out loud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OonDPGwAyfQ&feature=related