Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Sometimes I try in vain to tell myself

that I should have majored in something other than English. And it's true that I easily* could have done so--but in my soul, down to my toes, I am a born English major. My blood pressure rises when I see misuses of "to/too," "your/you're/your," "then/than," and so on, or when I see comma splices or inappropriately placed apostrophes. I cringe when I hear a person say something like "Mom took Angie and I to the store," or "me and her are going out." I correct mispronunciations. I am incapable of reading anything without proofreading it at the same time. I gave up Terry Brooks in high school (middle school?) because though he tells good stories, his books have grammatical errors scattered throughout. I almost did the same with Christopher Paolini, except that his are usage errors. Tonight I had dinner out with a friend after her choral recital, and I was so amused by the fact that one of the cheesecake descriptions was written with an enthusiastic exclamation point that I had to share my discovery with her. She was, of course, supportive but unimpressed. I spend time turning words and phrases over in my head, considering possible origins of words or turns of phrase, and trying to figure out how language developed. I get phrases stuck in my head more often than songs. It's an issue.

Also, I was almost giddy when I realized on the way home that I could, like**, get on the library catalog from here and request Terry Pratchett audio books. Unfortunately the selection is rather limited. I requested Unseen Academicals, by TP, Good Omens, by TP and Neil Gaiman, and Anansi Boys, by Gaiman. I was about to request more but I thought maybe I shouldn't be greedy.

I am considering a subscription to an audio book website. They have those! I discovered so this afternoon! Will wonders never cease??

























*"Easily" here meaning "with some small effort," and is differentiated from the "almost did it in my sleep" easy of majoring in English.

**Please know, or at least pretend, that wherever this is inserted (at least in my writing, and usually in my speech), it is inserted for effect. (I.e., not because I talk like a valley girl. Much.)

7 comments:

  1. Are you correcting me or referring to the site?

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  2. i thought there was an audiobook site called audible

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  3. hahaha...yeah...just didn't get my heart pumping I guess...Unlike when somebody references compositions of Hugo Wolf! Can't wait to hear more!


    That's why we all do what we do :)

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  4. I so appreciate this note except that

    -I don't know who you are

    -I don't know what it was, exactly, that didn't get your heart pumping

    -Who is Hugo Wolf (Sorry! About to go look him up.)

    -What you can't wait to hear more of.

    I would love to be more helpful if you would enlighten me!

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  5. Excuse me: what I meant to say was that I don't know who is Hugo Wolf, or what you can't wait to hear more of. That's always the danger with lists of that sort. The introductory phrase tends to get lost and create nonsensical fragments. My mistake. Anyway, probably the reason I don't know H.W. is that I don't really listen to much opera or classical music. I'm a cretin, I know.

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