Grammar, Spelling, Etc.

So, yeah. I write for a living. Then, why did I have to double check that I spelled grammar correctly in my title? Seriously, for a minute there, I thought it might actually end in an er instead of an ar.

I think I got into writing because I was pretty good in English while a student a good old District 84. Man, loved those sentence diagrams! However, all my teachers probably remember what a bad speller I was. Thank God for Spell Checker! (Altho it quite often fails me on Facebook, where all my writing colleagues are quick to point on my errors.) How embarrassing!

Now, my grammar, on the other hand, usually is correct on paper. However, put me in a conversation and the errors just start coming out — especially after I’ve had a few drinks. Throw in some old friends and some sort of accent overtakes me and I start pronouncing all sorts of words wrong too.

I guess the only thing I can blame this on is my upbringings. (Sorry Mom and Dad. This will be the only thing I blame you for, though.) I guess the corn and hogs didn’t care that I didn’t speak correctly. In fact, what we often said to the hogs wouldn’t be appropriate language for anybody! I never realized I had a problem with speaking correctly until I studied abroad in Australia. Yeah, not at the top of my list of discoveries I thought I’d make about myself in Australia. But one of my friends who I met while there asked me, why do you always use your don’ts and doesn’ts incorrectly. I can’t even remember the mistakes I was making, but then realized why I say what I did when I got back home. My Mom uses them incorrectly all the time! So, then I started correcting her all the time! ha!

All in all, I hope someday I’ll woo people with my poetic tongue. I am trying! Until that day, I guess I’ll just have to try to keep on writing. Even though I hate this saying, “You can take a girl off the farm, but not the farm out of the girl!” it just might be right.