Incredible but true...

First, I am losing my mind. I just published a blog post that I wrote back at the beginning of January and forgot about. I didn't even remember writing it; I've been thinking how slack I am because I haven't posted anything yet this year. I'm apparently not slack, just senile.

Second, I find some people annoying.

Let's start with this example.

Over the Christmas holidays, we went to visit K's family. While there, we took the three grandkids to have their picture made together. At the end of the session, the photographer/salesperson was putting the final touches on the package that K's mom ordered.

This package included photo cards, which K's mom wisely decided to send out as New Year's cards.

Here comes the issue.

The photographer/salesperson had to enter the text for the card and typed in the kids' names as "Ethan, Laney & Ashtin."

Now, I'm not great at a lot of things, but I am a grammatical freak. I do make mistakes on occasion -- you'll probably find several in the history of this blog; however, my mistakes are accidental -- not from a lack of knowledge.

I piped up (very nicely, I might add) -- "I'm sorry, but can we change that? It's not grammatically correct." There was a lot going on; it would have been very easy to make a small mistake.

The photographer/salesperson almost literally sneered. "It's correct."

I sneered back. "No, actually, it's not."

What?! Don't challenge me in that tone, you brazen little hussy! I hadn't been the least bit rude or condescending to begin with, but it was on.

FYI: One of my biggest pet peeves in the entire world is being talked down to like I'm stupid. You can correct someone's mistakes without making it seem it seem like a personal attack.

I know. I do it on a daily basis. It's a part of my job -- the job that I've been trained to do.

K's mom stepped in and asked the woman to change it so that I would be happy. K. was giving me The Look, and I'm pretty sure his mom was just trying to keep me from making a scene.

The photographer/salesperson snidely asked what I would like on the cards.

"Ethan- comma- Laney- comma- and Ashtin -- with the 'and' spelled out."

Now, I would have thought she would have let it drop, but no. She continued to try to convince me that she was right. I could tell she thought herself to be above this job and those who would employ such services.

(Well, I took a hint from the fact that she had quickly let us know that she has a degree in graphic design and was capable of fixing a small problem in the photo herself but couldn't due to company policy.)

"I used to work for a greeting card company, and the way I had it is correct," she explained. "It was in a handbook we used."

Her tone wasn't explanatory or even kind. It was snide and hateful.

Sidenote -- If you don't like your job, find another. If you don't want to find another, then don't be hateful. Make the best of what you have.

Besides, if you're that good of a graphic designer, you wouldn't be working in a children's photography studio.

Anyway, I was so flustered by her nasty attitude, that I couldn't make much of a logical argument, but I wasn't about to let her continue in her ignorance.

"Well, I teach English," I began, "and regardless of what your 'handbook' stated, it's not correct. Many common mistakes are now accepted in writing and publishing, but that doesn't make those mistakes correct."

She mumbled something.

Girl, I thought, don't make me get up out of this chair.

I continued, "Many people think that because newspapers and magazines don't use commas at the end of a series, this is ok for common usage, but the fact is journalism has its own set of grammatical rules created mostly to save space. I know this because I taught journalism, too. Printing a card and printing a newspaper are two entirely different things. If my kids' names are going to be on this card, then it's going to be correct."

(Sidenote: I'm pretty sure I stuttered and stammered all through this speech because my first reaction in situations like this is to be flabberghasted, which affects the flow of my speech...)

Buddy, I was hot!!! My nostrils were flaring, and I was sitting ramrod straight on the edge of my chair, but I was about ready to stir up a brouhaha.

I try really hard to be a peaceful, civil, dignified person most of the time -- I've never been in a physical altercation with anyone except my brother --, but y'all, I was born out in the country where people drive trucks with big tires, some women dip snuff, and my family was out of the ordinary because the four of us -- me and Mom included -- didn't hunt.

I might look prim and proper and have a college education, but I am as scrappy as they come, and this dog will hunt when put in the right (or should I say, "wrong") situation.

Needless to say, K. was ready to crawl under the train table where he and Ethan were playing, and my mother-in-law had this really awkward smile pasted on her face.

With this, I stood up, and the girl decided to drop her argument.

I, of course, was riled up.

I ranted and raved all the way to the car, on the way to lunch, and while at the lunch table.

I immediately set out to make sure that I didn't just make this stuff up, and my suspicions have been confirmed.

I'm not crazy, but I am a grammatical weird-o.

There are various types of grammatical rules. Standard rules are what most people are taught in English class in school.

In this case, commas are technically supposed to be used in a series. Many people have stopped, and thus this practice has become accepted, because publications do not use a comma before the last item in a series. For publications, this is a way to save space, much like the common journalistic practice of only spacing once between sentences.

Second, the "&" was improperly used. If the card had read "Ashtin, Ethan & Laney" this would have been ok because Ethan and Laney are a pair -- they're siblings. They belong to the same family or group. Since the card read "Ethan, Laney & Ashtin", this implies that Laney and Ashtin are somehow a pair, which they are not.

People often insert the ampersand (&) because it does, in fact, represent the conjunction 'and', but its connotation is that there is some sort of relationship between the connected names/items. People also often use this as an abbreviation to save space on cards, like this girl was trying to do, but it isn't correct. You wouldn't connect two sentences with an ampersand, for example. It may look more clean and neat, but grammatically it isn't proper.

Now, some of you may argue differently, but my response is that there is a difference between what is socially accepted -- like the lack of a serial comma or the incorrect usage of an ampersand -- but By Bob, just because everybody does 'it' doesn't make 'it' right.

So to you, anonymous photographer girl, I may not have made much sense to you that day, but I know my bleepity-bleep grammar! I was right, and you were wrong, and I hope all of your picture appointments are with mean, screaming kids.

Oh, and I also hope that one day I'll outgrow my tendency to get tongue-tied when I get frustrated so I can tell the person to whom the ranting applies instead of having to use my blog...