G is for Grammar

I went to school back in the days when we diagrammed sentences and English was a separate subject from Reading. In other words, we spent a lot of time on parts of speech, sentence structure, and grammar in general. Back then, I was pretty good at it. Just give me the rules and I could apply them in almost any situation.

However, time has passed and the rules have changed. Or at least, not many people are following the rules as I learned them. That goes for professionals on TV as well as the newspapers. That goes for books and the everyday educated person. I realize that language grows and changes over time, but this evolution has left me confused.

As I have mentioned in this blog before, I don't understand today's trend of the fewer the commas the better. I'm not sure when this started, but several years ago I was in a seminar with a publisher (and as a geologist, I have no idea why I was there.) and I heard an interesting thing. At that point in time, paper was very expensive and book publishers were feeling the pinch. One of the ways they were dealing with this, besides making the margins narrower, was leaving out all "unnecessary" commas. It seemed rather silly to me but she said in the long run, it was saving them money.

Because I see so many differences in the way language is used today, not only am I unsure, I'm forgetting what I used to know.  For example, when is it that you capitalize a season? When do you use the word healthy and when do you use the word healthful. I used to know. However, today I see seasons capitalized in an almost random way. (I tend to follow this method.) Also, I've observed that healthy is used in almost all circumstances whether it is an adjective or adverb. (I too am guilty of this.) I think that healthful may become a thing of the past as language evolution continues.

A couple of other changes that are on the horizon are take/bring and less/fewer. Have you noticed that no one uses take anymore? They are always bringing something whether the object is coming toward them or going away from them. And the one that is an assault to my ears every time I hear it-people using less when they mean fewer. (Less is an amount that can't be divided into discreet things. Fewer measures something that has discreet things that can be counted.) I fear, too, that these uses as I learned them will become a thing of the past in not so distant future. And the list goes on.

However, in the meantime, I'm happy that this is a conversational, casual blog. I don't think I could stand the pressure of trying to figure out what is the correct grammar of the day every time I post.

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Let's not even get started on the effect that texting is having on our written language. Maybe I'll discuss that with the letter "T".

And yes, I am old. At least old enough, that I wish for the good old days when things were done "right". :)

F is for still Figuring it out

F is for still Figuring it out

When I was trying to think about what I was going to write for “F” day, my mind was blank except for “Fun” and another word I don't think I'll mention here that rhymes with duck. Although, I do remember asking one of my older sister's friends what the unmentionable word meant and why it was bad to say. However, I didn't think that was a subject I wanted to go into here. “Fun” was such a broad topic, I couldn't seem to narrow that down enough to write a cohesive post about it.

Next I called in my son and asked if he would brainstorm with me a little. He was full of ideas for the letter “F”. However my mistake was starting the conversation before I had something to write with. Here's some of the things I managed to write down that he suggested.

Fireworks: good. I have some decent pictures I took of them last summer. I could use the story about my 18 month old nephew saying, “Bubbles boom.” when he saw them. Maybe.

Fried food: that always tastes good, but don't know if I can expand it into a new post unless I cook something with a recipe. Not gonna happen in time.

Friends: maybe, use the standard theme of new friends in blog land

Firsts: a possibility but the topic is so broad I'm drawing a blank

Forgetting and do a corollary post for “R” on remembering: Got plenty of forgetting examples for this

Fans—I could tell about the fights with my sister over the fan in the room we shared. Don't know if she would like that because I, of course, would be the one who came out looking good.

Furniture: I got nothing

Formaldehyde and dissecting stories: I could tell about the biology teacher who would take a snake out of formaldehyde and throw it at us to make us not afraid of snakes. Not sure that worked.

Fungus: why does fungus sound gross while mushrooms sounds gourmet

Flatscreen TV: I got nothing

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Floors: already posted about our new floors

Fiber: not sure that's where I want to go here

Fluorescent lights: maybe. I have a few opinions about them.

So there you have it. My undeveloped ideas for "F". When I showed a draft of this post to my son, he said that it was awfully early in the alphabet to do a post like this and maybe I could do one about Fingerprints. Well, it's time to move onto the next letter, so I have to go with what I've got. If I'm really lucky, I'll have another “brainstorming” session with him, and convince him that he needs to write the next post. :)

E is for Everyday Beauty

Sunrise out my kitchen window. 

I think I'm like most people in that I get involved in the details of my everyday life and forget to notice and be thankful for what surrounds me. This was never made more evident to me than a few years ago.

It was early morning and I was standing with several other parents waiting for everyone to show up for a Boy Scout camping trip. I was not in a good mood. The boys, who we could barely wake up a short time ago, were running around pestering each other. It was early enough that it was still dark out and it was cold. I was grumbling to another mom about how cold and sleepy I was when another dad, Tom, joined our conversation. I made some comment about the weather and he responded. "Isn't the cold invigorating. And look at the sky, the sun is rising. It's another day and I always think, 'How beautiful. God has created another beautiful day and he is actually letting me be a part of it."" Wow. That woke me up. Both literally and figuratively.

Since them, I try to remember that morning and what Tom said. I am lucky that I get to be a part of another day. It is easier to do that when I am witnessing a beautiful vista on a warm spring afternoon, but I also try to remember it on the mornings when I've had to get up sooner than I want and it is yet another cold, rainy morning. And since everything reminds me of a song...

For the beauty of the earth; (first two verses)

For the beauty of the earth

For the beauty of the skies,

For the love which from our birth over and around us lies:

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour 

of the day and of the night, 

Hill and vale and tree and flower, 

Sun and moon and stars of light: 

Lord of all, to thee we raise 

this our joyful hymn of praise.

Words: Fol­li­ot S. Pier­point, in Lyra Eu­cha­rist­ica, by Or­by Ship­ley, se­cond edi­tion, 1864.

Music: Dix, Con­rad Koch­er, 1838

Thankful Sunday--April 5, 2015

I am thankful for the A-Z Blogging Challenge.

I had gotten into a blogging slump where it was easy to be distracted by other things and not have much energy left for composing posts. But the thing is, composing posts got the ole creative juices flowing and gave me energy. This challenge has helped me focus and organize my time, so I am back to blogging. And for that I am thankful.

(I am finding it a bit of a challenge to figure out a topic for every letter, but four down and only 22 more to go. Wish me luck.)

D is for Delivery Day

When you mention the subject of pregnancy or birth to any woman who has had kids, she is happy to share her story. This true whether she's had nineteen kids or one, or if it happened last year or seventy years ago. I'm no different. Today, I'm going to share the my delivery day story for my first child, Wally. (But don't worry. This is really a story about getting to the hospital rather than the details of the actual delivery.)

23 hours after it all started, Wally was delivered.

Picture it. It was 5 AM on a warm April day in New Orleans. I had just gotten up to go to the bathroom (again) and I seemed to keep peeing even though I was trying not to. Hmm. Maybe my water just broke, but I wasn't sure. My due date was three weeks away and I didn't seem to have any other signs of labor. I woke up my husband, Ward, and we discussed what to do. We were not sure, but decided rather than bother anyone at that early hour, we'd just show up at the doctor's office when it opened and get the doctor's opinion.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to the doctor's office. It was the day of the Crescent City Classic--a large race that had many of the streets blocked including the one that we needed to cross to get to the doctor's office. So we sat in the car, with me looking hugely pregnant, and listened to a police officer tell us that he couldn't let us cross even if I were having a baby. What to do next?

Ward decided to try to figure out a back way to the hospital. I had a breastfeeding class scheduled for there in a couple of hours anyway. We finally made it to the class and at the end, I told one of the instructors that I thought my water had broken that morning. She got excited and told me to go to the maternity ward.

I was admitted but still nothing more than random contractions. The doctor showed up about an hour later. He said he was very glad we called, because he was in the middle of his son's cello recital and was happy to leave. Because of risk of infection, the baby needed to come today so labor was induced. And then the fun began...

I realize that this story is probably of not much interest to anyone but me, but I had a very hard time thinking of anything to write about for the letter D.