Dear Kid,

Don’t get me wrong. I love technology. Love social media. There are people who have suggested (in a kindly way) that I have a slight addiction to Twitter and Pinterest. And maybe LinkedIn. Perhaps even Facebook. I believe in blogs—I work on blogs and websites all day long. Often far into the night. So I am anything but a Luddite (any opponent of industrial change or innovation –definition provided for your learning convenience).

BUT

my poor little head is about to explode and scatter disgusting bits of brain all over the room.

I just read a guest blog submission that was sent to the fabulous Girlfriendolgy. I’m guessing the author thought it was written in English. It wasn’t written in any language I recognize. It wasn’t that it was written in British or some other widely recognized version of the English language (like Canadian). No, no. This was written in Garbage. Rule of thumb: If you’re not sure, get  someone else to proof read your work.

The author only had a nodding acquaintance with the concept of grammar, and had clearly never contemplated putting together a string of related sentences. She obviously preferred the just-put-down-words-and-let-the-reader-worry-about-it approach to writing. Or perhaps she had studied at the school of if-I-sound-snooty-enough-someone-will-take-me-seriously. (I didn’t.)

It wasn’t that it was written too informally (idk, maybe that would have helped). It was almost that the author was trying too hard to be impressive. Rule of thumb: If you don’t know what a word means, don’t use it until you’ve looked it up.

There are times for writing formally (class assignments especially in college, lab reports, requests for a raise) and there are times for writing very informally (texts, scribbled notes on scraps of paper and message boards). Most communication (like blogs) falls somewhere in between. While each type of communication has its own rules (rule for early morning: use nothing more complicated than a nod and a grunt), nowhere will you find the rule “write badly and use bad grammar.”

You will be stunned [sarcasm font] to know that I sent it back with a request to rewrite (or destroy).

Hope you are having a wonderful, well-grammar-ed day.

Love, Mom