Sunday, October 9, 2011

Paragraphs and Punctuation--Oh My!

Evidently paragraphs are important. I taught English for 10+ years--I should know this. I also have a problem with hyphens, ellipses and exclamation points. My English professors (who were like a hundred when they taught me a hundred years ago--did I mention I have a problem with hyperbole as well?) would be horrified to read my blog. IF they could figure out what a blog is. I'm still not sure I know...

So paragraphs. Apparently they are pleasing to the eye. Who knew?! I am a ranter--when I talk and when I write--yet it is a BIG no-no (as far as English teachers (myself included) are concerened). I talk in one big run-on sentence (as if you didn't figure THAT out yet), so to get my point across, I write like that as well. Only, I'll never get my point across to people who give up because my non-paragraphed--hyphenated--ellipsied--hyperbolic work pushes them to the next blog about the most money ever paid for a cow or a blog chronicling the life of a fruit fly.

The problem is, it seems I rarely have an actual POINT. I just like to talk--or write--about whatever pops into my brain at the moment. As you can imagine, it has gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years. This..."condition" has worsened as I've aged. It frightens me because I'm beginning to understand the crabby old ladies I once waited on in grad school. You know--the ones who seem to have Tourette's because they yell out obscenities or rude comments, seemingly unprovoked. It turns out they WERE provoked. Years of being "nice," "keeping their mouths shut" and "doing the right thing" all the time finally caught up with them and they stopped worrying about what others thought. Or felt. Hmmm--maybe I need to work on this now...

2 comments:

  1. Serenity now. Insanity later.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What scares me is I think in MY life it's "Insanity now. Insanity later."

    ReplyDelete

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