The next time I upload a photo of myself, you are going to be shocked. I have decided to allow my hair to go completely grey. In my case, it shouldn’t make me feel old. I went grey in my twenties, so I’m assuming it will make me feel young. Let’s just hope baby-faced grocery store cashiers refrain from asking me if I want the senior citizens’ discount.
A lot of things can make a person’s hair go grey prematurely. I was kissed by a steering wheel on the forehead, which sprouted my first big chunk of grey–a stripe that ran from my forehead back across the side of my head. I swear the grey increased exponentially when I had kids.(Love you, guys!)One thing that makes me crazy enough to add to my already grey head is grammar mistakes.
I’m not talking about misuse of adverbs, gerunds or other complicated grammatical rules. I’m talking about things like mixing tenses, running sentences together and turning nouns into verbs. Do you even know what I’m talking about? You aren’t alone. Many people these days can’t remember what exactly is in a proper sentence. So don’t feel bad…and then I hope you feel bad!
Even though grammar seems like a trivial thing, it can mean the difference between a potential customer thinking you are a professional company and thinking that you are sloppy. Good grammar can help you say what you mean in a way people can’t misunderstand. Yes, other issues are important to understanding a message too, such as word choice and facts. But grammar should be one of your most important priorities.
So here’s your grammar lesson for today.
Make sure you stick to one tense (past, present or future) for the bulk of your message. Only change tense when you have a good reason.
Make sure each sentence has only one subject, verb and object. If you add more than one subject/verb/object idea, separate it from the other unit with a comma and linking word/conjunction. Better yet, separate the sentences with a period, semicolon or dash (NOT a hyphen).
Don’t cell(sic) a friend to question mark them about Jeeping to a movie, when you can more easily just ask them if they want to go. On second thought, if you’re doing it on purpose, at least you understand the grammar you are demolishing. Go ahead and have fun with it when you are with your friends, but keep it away from me, or I’ll blame you for my next grey hairs.
