With all these important people telling me what is right and wrong and what I ought to do and how to think correctly, it reminds me of some of the things that my English teacher taught me, and how some of them bug me today.
I’ve taken her advice and looked things up when they hit me wrong. Like (meaning example, not like, you know) when someone says amount of people.
According to the example, number is used when you can count them, such as ( Ha, got away from like) people, but what about money?
That can be counted, but it sounds dumb to say number of money.What is the rule there?
Sounds like the rules of spelling which never did make much sense to me.
Now, that word sense that is like (like is okay here) another word not spelled alike but sounds alike and doesn’t even mean the same thing such as (evaded like) since.
But I won’t get off on spelling since I really would like to make some sense in what I’m writing.
Another thing was the use of don’t and doesn’t. I used to say he don’t, but after the teacher said, “Would you say he do not,” I got the point.
Now split infinitives may or may not be alright, but then Shakespeare comes to my aid.
How often I read to not instead of not to in the newspaper. Did my teacher tell me to not or not to; to use not after to or to use not before to?
Well Hamlet said it best with,“To be or not to be … ?”
Shakespeare had a way with words, and to be or to not be does not seem a proper question.
After all that is said and done, I haven’t even covered how to use right, right?
Now, I’ve kind of tried my hand with the use of
like and maybe you know, but those words like right have just become fillers, sort of, of the ugh, that so many of us put in when we can’t remember what to say, particularly as old age sets in, and it becomes a habit like (such as) breathing.
I had a teacher once who pushed his glasses up his nose even when he wasn’t wearing them. Habits become habit forming.
I though that I would interject a little humor once in awhile so that we will not take ourselves or what we are told to think too seriously.
After all, from what I’ve seen, we won’t care about them after we’re gone, and anyway (not anyways) if this rubs someone the wrong way, he/she can crumple it up, throw it away or burn it, and I doubt he will hear a mummer.
Laugh when you can. Life is too short not to. Yes. not to.
Sincerely, Norma Christian Raymondville
