I was about 10 minutes into an argument with my 6th hour yesterday regarding whether or not knowledge of how to use an apostrophe correctly was requisite to their general happiness and success in life when it happened,
I broke.
They had worn me down.
I had ceased to care.
For the record I'm not supposed to be teaching remedial writing, yet 30% of my freshman tested below the minimum standard in writing last year so I am apparently remediating nonetheless. Understandably, writing has been a bit of a sensitive issue this year and where I am usually finding myself annoyed with subject/verb agreement errors, this year I'm doing cartwheels if a paper is turned in with only a handful of fragments and run-on sentences. I spent the majority of my previous weekend stumbling through 70 of some of the most poorly-written essays I've ever collected, and as a consequence I guess I just didn't have the emotional strength to fight for the apostrophe anymore. (Sorry little punctuation. Rest in peace.)
It was at that moment when it occurred to me that if I just accepted some of the grammar and spelling rules most of my students have already adopted not only would I be a happier person, but I'd also be a better teacher because my students would be instantly transformed into better writers. And so I'm giving in. To celebrate my defeat, I've created a small list of some revisions I'm planning to petition to the MLA committee - wherever they may be. Please take a quick sec to look them over, and do let me know if there's anything you think I may have missed.
Rule #1: Apostrophes are dumb should be eradicated.
Context clues are sufficient to discern between plural and possessive nouns, silly.
Rule #2: Parts of speech are irrelevant since any noun can be turned into a verb and vice-versa.
It's quite easy, you see. For instance, see how easily the noun "injustice" can become "injusticize," and "prejudice" can become "prejudized." And if pesky spell check pops up, just hit "add word" and poof! You're Shakespeare, creating your own words and stuff!
(Actually, this is a rule I've already sort of embraced. My frequent use of the words "assemblage," "fuckwit," "skeptimistic" are proof enough.)
Rule #3: Commas are awesome and, should be used, as frequently as, possib,le.
Rule #4: Like apostrophes, homonyms are equally dumb so let's not fret over them anymore, okay?
Instead of spelling them differently (which can be terribly confusing) let's just combine all spellings into one franken-word. Let "there/their/they're" become "ther." Let "weather/whether" become "wheather." Let "to/two/too" become "twoo." The English language has twoo many words as it is.
So, Ill bee writing the, proposal, sometime this week. Just, let me know if ther r any, rulez of ur own ud like me twoo, add and Id bee happy twoo do, so.
(Judge me if you must, but I'm so tired. So very very tired.)
I broke.
They had worn me down.
I had ceased to care.
For the record I'm not supposed to be teaching remedial writing, yet 30% of my freshman tested below the minimum standard in writing last year so I am apparently remediating nonetheless. Understandably, writing has been a bit of a sensitive issue this year and where I am usually finding myself annoyed with subject/verb agreement errors, this year I'm doing cartwheels if a paper is turned in with only a handful of fragments and run-on sentences. I spent the majority of my previous weekend stumbling through 70 of some of the most poorly-written essays I've ever collected, and as a consequence I guess I just didn't have the emotional strength to fight for the apostrophe anymore. (Sorry little punctuation. Rest in peace.)
It was at that moment when it occurred to me that if I just accepted some of the grammar and spelling rules most of my students have already adopted not only would I be a happier person, but I'd also be a better teacher because my students would be instantly transformed into better writers. And so I'm giving in. To celebrate my defeat, I've created a small list of some revisions I'm planning to petition to the MLA committee - wherever they may be. Please take a quick sec to look them over, and do let me know if there's anything you think I may have missed.
Rule #1: Apostrophes are dumb should be eradicated.
Context clues are sufficient to discern between plural and possessive nouns, silly.
Rule #2: Parts of speech are irrelevant since any noun can be turned into a verb and vice-versa.
It's quite easy, you see. For instance, see how easily the noun "injustice" can become "injusticize," and "prejudice" can become "prejudized." And if pesky spell check pops up, just hit "add word" and poof! You're Shakespeare, creating your own words and stuff!
(Actually, this is a rule I've already sort of embraced. My frequent use of the words "assemblage," "fuckwit," "skeptimistic" are proof enough.)
Rule #3: Commas are awesome and, should be used, as frequently as, possib,le.
Rule #4: Like apostrophes, homonyms are equally dumb so let's not fret over them anymore, okay?
Instead of spelling them differently (which can be terribly confusing) let's just combine all spellings into one franken-word. Let "there/their/they're" become "ther." Let "weather/whether" become "wheather." Let "to/two/too" become "twoo." The English language has twoo many words as it is.
So, Ill bee writing the, proposal, sometime this week. Just, let me know if ther r any, rulez of ur own ud like me twoo, add and Id bee happy twoo do, so.
(Judge me if you must, but I'm so tired. So very very tired.)
Labels: general snarkiness, only losers know how to use semicolons anyway
