Ahhhhh, Grammar: Ten Little Rules

The class was tough. We had to give persuasive speeches. We had to learn the parts of speech. We had to diagram sentences. This, I thought, was surely the stupidest thing I had ever done in my 12 precocious years. I was forced to make pointless trees and lines with every part of seemingly endless sentences. It was hard. It took a lot of thinking about words. I memorized rules and hints. "... -ly is usually an adverb. An adverb describes a verb, while an adjective describes a noun. A, an and the are articles. Never end a sentence with a preposition or dangle your participles. Whatever those are."

I seriously rolled my eyes (even if only in my head) about what good all this would ever be to me. I mean, I was going to be a billionaire living in a mansion, driving a jeep, with 4 kids. I had played MASH during C lunch and already knew all this grammar would be pointless to me.

Except now I wish I could find Mrs. Curlee and tell her that of everything I ever learned in school... what she taught me that year has mattered most. True, she set the bar high. True, a whole classroom of 12-year-old kids resented her for having to really use our brains. True, I struggled and my brain hurt, and it took time away from things like tight-rolling my Guess jeans, and making sure my Benetton sweater was perfect and my crunchy, permed, blow-dried solid wings were still flawless. And true... hundreds, no thousands, of children who came through her classroom are smart, articulate and much better off for the time spent with her.

Mrs. Curlee and English teachers from sea to shining sea are fighting an uphill battle. What do 12 year olds know about what's good for them? I can't imagine how tough things are today in the world of "how r u, im gr8!" that they are forced to help children unlearn. And for every hated moment I spent learning, diagramming, and staring at disbelief at all the red pen on my papers... is matched in triplicate for every moment of silent gratitude I spend for having learned it.

Why does grammar matter?

Grammar is only a tool for communication. It is your way to make yourself be understood. So while you may think grammar is pointless, communication is surely not. Learning and then adhering to the rules of grammar is your way to facilitate comprehension. It does matter. And it may be ugly, it may be unfortunate, it may even be wrong... but you are judged everyday by the manner in which you speak and the manner in which you write. I'm not going to debate the morality of that.

People are passed over for jobs, not taken seriously in their pursuits or in our case, lose readers because of simple grammatical errors. People want the easiest path from A to B and trying to decipher what they think you might mean is not that path. We're not talking about linguistic debates here - nothing complicated, nothing controversial. I've made a list of the most common, but easy to learn, grammatical errors and how to fix them. Don't thank me, thank Mrs. Curlee! :)

1. Your vs. You're
Your is a possessive, meaning something belonging to you. It shows ownership.
Your dog, your books, your boyish good looks.

You're is a contraction. You + Are = you're. It is a subject and verb all mooshed into one.
You're hilarious! You're going to be soo glad you learned this.

To make sure you have the right one, check and see if you could say "you are" in its place in your sentence. If you can, you need "you're".

2. Their vs. They're vs. There
Their is like your. It's possessive, belonging to them.
Their house is quaint and cosy. Have you seen their dog?
To spell it properly, remember it starts like 'the'. My mom taught me that part.

They're is like you're. It's another contraction. They + Are = They're. Subject and verb again.
They're hilarious! They're going to be soooo super glad they learned grammar!

There is a place indicator. As opposed to here, it's there. It even has 'here' inside it to remind you.
Turn right over there. That's neither here nor there.

3. Its vs. It's
Surprise, surprise another possessive vs. contraction again!

Its is a possessive, belongs to it. Its does not require that cute little /'/ apostrophe mark.
Nike's swoosh mark is its distinguishing character. Its long legs help roadrunner run so fast.

It's is a contraction, It + Is = It's or It + Has = It's Subject then verb.
It's not too tricky to learn grammar. It's worth its weight in gold. It's been so long!

Again, to check yourself, try replacing 'it is' in your sentence.

4. Agree to, well... agree.

So this one isn't as clear cut as 1-3. But it simply means that if you have a plural (more than one) subject, you need a plural verb. Likewise, if you have a single subject, you need a single verb. Subject and verb must agree.

So which is right?
There's thousands of people here! or There're thousands of people here!
There is (thousands of) people vs. There are (thousand of) people.

The answer is #2. There are people. So.... there're thousands of people here!

Try this one:
There's plenty of reasons to learn! or There're plenty of reasons to learn!
It's words like "thousands" and "plenty" stuck in the middle there that throw people off. Reasons and People are plural - so they need the plural verb, are.

Think about these for a moment:

"A baby is healthier if you feed them milk with DHA ."
"This message is for Handy Man. Please have them call us back at 1-800..."
"Everyone should eat their vegetables."
No. Using them and their, in those examples, is an attempt at being politically correct and avoid using his/her or him/her, and somehow offending the world by picking a gender. One baby = him. Lots of babies = them. Handy Man is definitely a him. ;) Words like everyone, anyone, every, each talk about ONE person. They are singular.
"A baby is healthier if you feed him milk..."
" ...please have him call us back..."
"eat his vegetables" is correct.

5. Let us vs. lettuce
Okay, laugh with me on that one. I just wanted to make sure you're still awake. Lettuce check, shall we? ;)

6. Here vs. hear
"Here ye! Here ye!" or is it "Hear ye! Hear ye!"?
Ye listen with ye ears and hear. See the word 'ear' in hear? It's a great reminder.
Here, like there, is all about location, location, location.

7. Should of. Would of. Could of.
Maybe now would be a good time to go get yourself a Diet Coke (right Deb?) or an iced, quad-shot latte with no whip. We're almost there.

This error stems from the way it sounds.
Should have, would have, could have contract and become should've, would've, could've.

8. Moses and Jesus are the exception.
It's called an apostrophe and it seems that most of the English speaking, errr writing world has screwed it up. For a funny read about this, I strongly recommend Brit author Lynn Truss's book, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves." She covers punctuation woes in the funniest of examples. It's a quick read and totally worth your time.

So lettuce let us break it down:

Possessive apostrophe.
The book belongs to Mike. The book is Mike's.
The apples belong to the class. They are the class's apples.
The computer belongs to the boys. It is the boys' computer.
The dens belong to the foxes. They are the foxes' dens.
The drink belongs to Thomas. It is Thomas's drink.
The burden belongs to Jesus. It is Jesus' burden.

Single possessives need apostrophe-s. Mike's dog, class's teacher, fox's den, Thomas's hand.
Plural possessives put an apostrophe at the end: Classes' teachers, boys' feet, foxes' den, the Joneses' house.
Only Jesus and Moses are the exception. Jesus' mother, Mary. Moses' basket was found in the bulrushes.
But let's say you have two friends - James and Alexis. It's James's mother, Mary. Alexis's basket was found in the bushes.

Rule of thumb for plural possessives: make the word plural then figure out where to put the apostrophe.

A plural never needs an apostrophe.
Never, ever for any reason when you make a single word plural do you ever add an apostrophe. It's an apostrophe catastrophe. (He he. funny!). It's worth repeating - if you have more than one of something, you don't need an apostrophe. You need an /s/ or /es/.
Books, bags, houses, boxes, classes, moms, dads, brothers and sisters.

Wrong: The mom's are coming over.
Wrong: The donut's are on sale.

Here in Iowa there is a ridiculous restaurant called Maid-Rite. For almost 5 years I thought it was a cleaning service, but that's a whole 'nother discussion. Check out this link: http://www.maid-rite.com/newlocations/locations/bellevue.shtml

See there in photo number 3? "Our Name Say's It All."

Well, it certainly does, doesn't it? It "say's" we can't spell, we can't write, and turns out we can't clean your house either. Through how many people did the sign pass in the process of designing it, making it, distributing it, hanging it, etc.?

Says is the third-person singular verb of to say. He says, she says. Verbs never need an apostrophe.

Plural names don't take an apostrophe either. Want to know how to address your Christmas cards? No apostrophes!
The Millers
The Joneses
The Smiths
The Thomases

Do not address a Christmas card to: The Miller's, The Jones'es or The Jones', The Smith's, The Thomas'es or The Thomas'. If there is more than one Smith, they are the Smiths, plural. If there is more than one Jones, they are the Joneses. Now you can use an apostrophe if you are sending a Christmas card to The Smiths' Dog. If you can't remember... spare yourself the embarrassment and write:
The Miller Family, The Smith Family, The Jones Family or The Thomas Family.
This apostrophe catastrophe can be seen on wedding invitations, RSVPs and holiday cards. How embarrassing!

9. Don't dangle your participles.

Really, everyone seems to know not to dingle dangle. But they can't figure out the dang dangle. In other words, uhhh... what's a participle? It's much easier to show you.

Wrong: Covered in gooey fudge, the kids loved their ice cream sundaes.
Uhhhh.... gooey fudge-covered kids???

Right: Covered in gooey fudge, the ice cream sundaes were quickly devoured by the kids.
Gooey fudge-covered ice cream.... yum!

Wrong: Complicated and a full of wires, I couldn't figure out the silly VCR.
What am I, a robot?

Right: Complicated and full of wires, the VCR was just too hard to figure out!
You see... the phrase talks about whatever is closest to it. So to avoid robots and fudge-covered kids... don't dangle!

10. If you're over 12 years of age, avoid txtg ur peeps in IM spk.

So, I get it that some cell phones limit the space and number of text messages you send. I comprehend that necessity is the mother of all invention. But your blog is not a half-inch cell phone message. Do not use "u", "2", "r" and other cute-if-you're-10 text-speak. U will lose ur readers if u blog 2 them like this. Numerals are universally accepted in place of numbers in casual blogging but should be written out in all papers, work documents and more formal emails. Pretend words like "nite", "gr8", "c u l8r", "kwim?", etc., aren't universally understood by your readers. Please use real words.

That's it! Ten itty-bitty, little rules. The blogosphere will thank you! And if I could learn it at 12, you can, too!

Thanks, Mrs. Curlee, from every 12-year-old, eye-rolling, heavily sighing kid.

Blog Bloat: CONTENT #3

So far we've tackled tags and a little about sidebar bloat. This time I'd like to talk about content.

Human culture has a funny way of creating nuances, manners or etiquette. And you can go into an entire argument about how arbitrary and pointless it can be. But it boils down to this... humans like order. For some reason, we like to have rhyme and reason for what we do. The blogosphere is no different; it has its own culture, and likewise its own set of rules. Tough part is, no one really explains the "rules" to you, yet everyone and his neighbor's mailman's dog has a blog. And while everyone likes a blog that is unusual, offers something different, thinks outside the box, etc., I do believe there are some unspoken truths about blogging. Here are some of those that came to mind.

1. Write.
Now this may seem like an easy one. But you'd be surprised. What I mean by 'write' is to sit, think, compose something and write. People come to visit you for your content.

2.Play show 'n' tell.
People like pictures. You can play show and tell and still play it safe. Okay, don't photograph your children in their birthday suits. Don't give your address. Be attentive to what's in the background of your photos. License plate numbers, house numbers, school names, and such are a no-no. The only people who care about those things are exactly the people who have no business knowing.

3. Find your shift key already.
LOOK, I UNDERSTAND THAT TYPING IN ALL CAPS MAY SAVE YOU 0.023 MILLISECONDS. BUT THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS... IT'S RUDE. IT'S LIKE SHOUTING AT PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. PEOPLE GET AGITATED; THEY SHIFT IN THEIR SEATS. NO ONE LIKES TO GET YELLED AT. So please, turn your caps lock off. Find your shift key. Most keyboards have two - so no excuses. It's that important. Look at your keyboard. Do you see any other keys SOOOO important that there are two of them? No, you don't. So if the logic stands that you have two ears and one mouth so you listen twice as much as you talk... then I reason that you have two shift keys and only one cap lock because you're meant to shift every. single. sentence.

4. Play fair. Don't steal.
I once saw an entire blog post of mine copied and pasted word-for-word in someone else's blog. She didn't credit me, didn't link to me or acknowledge me in any way. She simply copied my blog, pasted it in her own and hit publish. I suppose I should be flattered (I wasn't. Plus I know her. Like in real life.). She probably assumed I'd never find it. Another blogger once stole my blog name. She used the word three instead of the number 3, but she wrote an 'about me' that sounded hauntingly like my own; "Life With My Three Boybarians - homeschool mom of 3 boybarians...". ( I know her, too.) Hmmmm. But mostly it's about taking words, art, photos - really any intellectual property of someone else's - and using them without permission or credit. There are some tricky rules. Learn them.

5. Write.
Oh wait... did I use that one already? So, once there was a blogger (not YOU, dear reader!). She did Menu Monday, Terrific Tuesday, Works for Me Wednesday, Thankful Thursday... and soon... her blog was a collection of nothing but memes. Don't get me wrong - participate in activities, groups, etc. Engage, play tag, have fun. But write, write, write. I understand that part of playing nice and making friends is participating in these every once in awhile. The quickest way to lose your readers is to offer them the blogosphere's version of hors d'oeuvres every meal and never serve a main course. If you're trapped in a cycle of those pick your one or two favs and drop the rest. Or get used to saying hello to your mom in each post, hoping she'll come back (Hi Mom!).

6. Run spell check.
Really. It's free. Lord knows it helps me. It's doesn't catch all the typos. Gracious, no one is perfect. Readers seem to forgive me for all my spelling errors. But if you speelling airrors are so freequInt that it's destrakting, people won't read. (Wasn't that annoying?!)

7. Fergoodnesssakes already. Learn the basic rules of grammar.
You don't have to pour over Strunk & White to get a handle on the basics. Writing with basic English grammar isn't terribly difficult. The blogosphere will forgive you for not writing like a pro. It will not forgive you for making yourself look inarticulate and careless. This one deserves a post of its own!

Come back and read how Mrs. Curlee, my 7th grade English Teacher, changed my life.

Blog Bloat: SIDEBAR CONTENT #2

I loved all the feedback and admissions of guilt from some of you in my comments. Too too funny! I visited each and every one of you and I have to say - those were some fine tags. My applause! And thank you to my friends who come for the 4th reason - just because. Awww, I 'just because' you, too.

To answer my mom's question: the silly word "blog" comes from web+log. I guess the original bloggers were seafarers who kept logs. (aw, laugh with me on that one!) And I'm not exactly sure what happened to the /we/ in weblog or when it was dropped. Wikipedia has this to say about blogs:

"A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

"Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media."

Key words there are the last two - SOCIAL MEDIA.

So if you are maintaining your own little niche for social media the idea would be to make it somewhere your social circle wants to visit. And, of course, we want to do our former seafaring predecessors some justice and make our blogs easy to navigate.

So let's tackle sidebar content. Generally speaking, many bloggers use their sidebars to point their readers to places of interest. Some people use it as an alternative to their 'favorites' in their bookmarks. There is NO right and wrong way to maintain our sidebars. In fact, seeing all the differences is what makes blogging fun! Give yours some personality!

But (and you know this was coming!) - beware of blog bloat. Blog bloat is fulling up empty space for the sake of filling it up. It's just as annoying as listening to my almost 8-year-old's verbal diarrhea (ask my mom - the boy has NO internal dialogue. I love him but he talks 14+ hours a day!).

Some sidebar netiquette:
* Dead links: are your links even active anymore? No one likes to follow a link to an Error 404 message. Check them regularly.
* Links for the sake of links: do you visit all the links on your space? If so, keep them! But beefing up your sidebars with links not even YOU use is pointless, makes your space look cluttered and disorganized. Don't get me wrong, keep your references, keep important places you need to find. But lose the rest.
* Endless sidebars: Generally speaking the prime real estate is on the top 800 pixels of your blog. Most of your readers aren't going to scroll down much, if at all. Those spaces (the top screen's worth) are what most people will click. Focus on making them click-worthy or readable.
* Consider moving some things to the footer: maybe your stat counter, the endless awards you've received, your music (more on that soon!), etc.
* Consider rotating content: if you have been around the blogosphere for awhile and have built a HUGE list in your blogroll, consider making an expandable or drop down box (Flooble, among others, offers this). Also, if bloggers in your blogroll have quit blogging remember to remove them from your list.

Now, if you maintain a blog that is what I would consider a resource blog - this wouldn't apply. Some people use their blogs solely as a place to gather, link and learn - Trivium Academy blog comes to mind. Since the purpose of her sidebars are to offer readers a huge collection of resources - the rule to keep links streamlined doesn't apply. If you have a resource blog, just keep your categories well-defined, easy to navigate, and clear to understand. The rule about dead links is universal though!

So, go take a peek at your sidebars from the perspective of a reader. Make sure the links are active, organized and not overly abundant. Your social media network will thank you!

Blog Bloat: TAGS #1

Is your blog feeling a little... bloated?

I have a multi-post series planned about blogging and the blogosphere in general. Because I'm like a total expert. Or not. Look out Kathie Lee! Moms are going to blog. So, maybe I can help... a little. Not like we took a college class in blogging or online networking. But since I'm kinda a web geek, certifiably these days, I have done a little homework about it.

I write this blog with some hesitancy. Why? Because everyone who reads it will assume I'm talking about their blog. I'm not. I'm speaking very generally about the blogosphere as a whole. And the "you" in this blog, well... okay, it does mean YOU.

Let's talk about content. One of the most misused blog features is tags. What are tags anyway? I'm so glad you asked! Tags are those handy little ditties that you fill in when you post a blog (at the very bottom right on Blogger). They are often called "labels" or "keywords" or "tags" depending on where your blog is hosted. But that's just semantics.

Tags are meant to work like signs on a highway. They let people know where they're going and when to exit. And if you use them incorrectly they just lead to traffic jams or worse - people start ignoring the signs all together. So, you! Yes, this actually means YOU... How are you using your tags?

There are generally two types of bad tagging. First is the over-zealous tagger. Her label list is SOOOOO long and has contents like:
my friend Sarah (1)
Valentine's Day Parade (1)
our Christmas Pics (2)
science (4)
bird watching (2)
day at the zoo (1)
my BFF Joe (1)
went shopping (3)
rainbow (1)

Yikes. Time to condense. Try: Friends, Holidays, Nature, school. Succinct! Succinct is nice. If you find your labels list having lots of (1) OR (2)... it's time to condense. If you have more than say 20 or 25... time to condense.

The other type of bad tagging is the lazy tagger. She doesn't tag at all. Or, she has so few tags and they are so broad you can't decipher the topics from them at all.
Life (68)
Home (40)
everything else (103)

In this case, it's time to narrow down your subject matter a little bit. Generally, no one is Googling "life" as a topic and they're surely not Googling "everything else". I am a lazy tagger (among other things). If I could get away with just NICU, homeschool, boys, web stuff... I would. But then, you might never come back. And then, well... I'd be writing to nobody. (Except you, Mom. Hi, Mom. *waves*)

Think of packing your house. If your blog was a house, and each blog had to be boxed up and put in the right room, how would you box it up? What would you write with that big, fat Sharpie on the box? "Home"?
In this case, think descriptive! You don't need succinct. You need beautiful-imagery-with-words, concrete subject matter, solid understandable topics. Try: crafts, recipes, remodeling, family, friends, etc.

Sooo... what will this do for you?

For one, people will be able to navigate your space. They are more likely to click through to other pages and more likely to come back. Having your subject matter clearly spelled out allows blog readers to customize what they read in your little neck of the woods. And let's face it, not everything we write is appealing to everyone (except what I write, of course! You do read it ALL, right??). For example, I tend to get 3 pretty broad types of visitors... I get a lot of preemie and NICU parents. I get homeschoolers. Last (but never least) I get people interested in web design, blogging, online networking (ie, geeks like me!). But the web geek doesn't really want to pull out her tissues and read about the NICU. The NICU mom doesn't have time to think about homeschooling. The homeschooling mom is so stinkin' busy she really just needs the curriculum posts. So, with a few simple clicks... people can head their merry way and find the content they are looking for.

So, why'dja come here anyway? Did you google blog tags? Are you guilty of blog bloat? What kind of tagger are you?

More on blogging later. Come back soon. Go fix your tags. And if you do spruce up your tags, let me know - I'll come check out your handy work!

ps - I spelled the word "blog" wrong in this post 5 times. At least I know you didn't come here looking for spelling tips. ;) Thank you Blogger for spell check.