If you know me at all, you know that a 1st grader could easily beat me in a spelling bee. This is pretty awesome for little shin-biters around the world, but a bit disconcerting for me. So generally, I tell them they are spelling the word wrong because I’m a grown-up and I’m smarter than them. They listen… thus the problem with spelling and grammar in today’s world.
Yesterday was National Grammar Day: a day where those who feel inferior to the rest of the world can thumb their noses at those they deem simple-minded. While I don’t equate myself with these people, I did recently exclaim in the grocery store, “Look! They used the correct word ‘fewer’ rather than ‘less’ on their sign!” Then I only heard crickets chirping from all the other shoppers who had no idea what I was talking about. Fortunately, my friend Jason was there to be excited with me, or I might have had to remind these strangers who I am and then they would have been embarrassed.
This had me thinking. Am I a grammar geek? I don’t bother to spell-check emails or edit them before I hit send. I often have to think if I should use the word “lay” or “lie”, and I might as well forget trying to use the word “moot” properly. Then again, you should see the people rushing to loosen my corsets and give me mouth-to-mouth when I hit publish by accident before editing a post.*
I didn’t think I was a grammar geek… until recently. I told my friend Rod that I’m pretty sure I have what I like to call Literary Dysmorphia. Here I was, trucking along as a narcissistic blogger who loosely called herself a writer because… well, why the heck not? My amazing ability to fool people into believing I knew what I was doing led to much better writers than myself asking me to edit their works. This was great, because I had no friggin’ clue what I was doing. But being super awesome, I faked my way through it. Recently, I’ve been asked by a few people if I can hook them up in the editing world. But the most flattering of all was being found by the CEO of a huge editing company, and then being offered compensation to write something for them. It wasn’t much, but it was ego-stroking to say the least.
Literary Dysmorphia is defined by me as seeing your writing through warped goggles. Some writers are on their high horses thinking that they are better than everyone else, and can’t understand how others get published. Some of us are practically perfect, but are scared to death to actually write a book. Therefore, we cover ourselves in bacon grease and let dogs bite us so we don’t have to face that demon.
I’m a day late and a dollar short, but happy grammar day, y’all.
x,
Becca
Lady or Not… Here I Come!
*I totally noticed that this sentence was a run-on, but I make my own grammar rules, so shut it.
By the Mighty Mumford 