Being the aspiring writer that I am, I have been getting critiqued on my articles. Comma usage is my number one faux pas. To remedy this, I am just not going to use them... as much. Besides they are changing the rules. When I was in school, walking up hill both ways, we added commas into a sequence of adjectives including one before the "and" of the last one. For example, "My favorite M&M's are the blue, green, yellow, brown, red, and orange colored ones" should now be, "My favorite M&M's are the blue, green, yellow, brown, red and orange colored ones." OK, I got it. I'm an old dog learning new tricks, but how are we supposed to help our grand kids? Who am I kidding, my grand kids don't ask for my help. For that matter, neither did my kids.
Now, (comma after introductory phrase) what about past and passed? Past being a place in time; (yes, a semi colon has replaced a comma here... another new rule) however, time has passed to become the past. Hm mm. I drove passed you're house yesterday, in the past. Spellcheck is of no help with this. I need a grammar check. I have never been corrected on my usage of these, so I guess I'm doing alright, or is it all right. I do this a lot, which apparently has changed from alot (which spellcheck doesn't like). Oh, and a parenthesis... NEVER. If it needs parentheses, leave it out. I happen to like them. Now they are only to be used when making emoticons. I'll save you the trouble of looking this up... emoticons are smiley faces. :) Or in the parenthesis' case :( Incidentally, I did not misspell those words. The plural form of parenthesis is parentheses. So when do we ever use just one? Yep.... emoticons.
Believe it or not, I almost applied for a virtual teaching position to teach English to foreigners. I decided against it. While I do strongly feel if you're going to live here you should speak the language, I won't say it's easy to learn. The only qualification when applying was to know English. I really don't think I'm qualified. Besides, wouldn't you think I would have to know there, I mean their native language to, I mean too? Again, these are not picked up by spellcheck. I really wish they would consider revising spellcheck. If only I knew how to create an app!
There and their, to, too and two, personal and personnel, desert and dessert, are easy ones. Past and passed rank right up there with affect and effect, but that's another day, another post!
