I’m lounging in the Daily Grind Sunday evening, sipping apple juice and thinking about the past semester with Barbara. Of being called a Honkie and finally figuring out what a honkie is. And comprehending that after 15 years of formal education, I still have no idea how to use a semicolon.
What I’ve learned this semester - besides that almonds are members of the peach family - is that grammar, like people, is constantly changing. And you can never claim to know it all. The list of words that used to be hyphenated (but no longer need to be) can get longer than the list of films that either Bill Paxton or Bill Pullman has appeared in. Which is to say, long. Very long.
And just because you didn't see The Favor or The Lord’s of Discipline doesn’t mean you're not familiar with either of these distinguished actors (though you may often get them mixed up). The same concept applies to grammar where there are lots of rules you may have never seen (like the two Bill's movies). And not knowing the difference between a parallelism and a gerund (or Paxton and
While your subject and verb might not always agree (though they should), I hope that we can come to a consensus that grammar has many more rules than any of us will learn (or need to learn). And that as long as you can communicate clearly, your grammar is suitable. What’s important is that you understand the big concepts. Like that periods come at the end of a sentence (which is a complete thought). Or that Bill Pullman’s best role came as Lonestar in Spaceballs. The key is to communicate your message.
Getting serious (ie: stop reading now if you view my blog for enjoyment), I still need to improve upon my understanding and confidence with semicolons (and girls); I’m not always sure when to use them. There is a dearth of these winking, half-smiling connectors in my writing, and after a semester of writing blogs (and three-and-a-half years at university), this will be my first blog (and semester) where I attempt to use semicolons.
Other things I’ve learned about myself this semester:
*Apparently I tend write aggressively, which is better than writing passively without a subject followed by a verb.
*I use enough commas to give anyone pause... But have cut back. My first blog, 300 words long, had 32 commas. Compared to this blog, 500 words in length, which has only 13 commas.
*My beard grows with the occasional red hair, which is weird… (Still unsure about "which")
*My use of ellipses makes me grammatically complex in the eyes of Barbara...
