The Grammatical Curse

I was watching SATC last night -- it's one of my all-time favorites -- and Carrie runs into Natasha, Big's new, much younger wife. She attempts to go to a "Women in the Arts" luncheon in order to get a glimpse of the woman Big picked to be his (after all, he did not pick Carrie). But as it turns out, Natasha is a no-show. Later on, Carrie receives a note from Natasha thanking her for her attendance at the luncheon and apologizing for her own absence. "Sorry I couldn't be their." THEIR!! Carrie immediately calls Miranda and makes fun of Natasha because she's obviously an idiot. It's so funny to me because that is exactly the way I feel about grammar! I'm completely obsessed!

It's the weirdest thing, but as I edit my own work or the work of others, it seems that the errors jump off the page (or screen) and scream to me that they are wrong. I don't know when I developed this talent, if you will. Perhaps it's genetic because my mother is similar. But I'll be reading a website or a magazine and I see the gramatically incorrect sentences or words and I cringe. I can think of two specific instances. One was about a year ago, when I was in Spain. I was reading a well-known American fashion magazine, whose name shall remain anonymous, and I spotted an error. Now, to me, this was completely absurd. There is absolutely no reason with all the staff - writers, copy editors, fact checkers - that this little error should have slipped through the cracks. It's completely unacceptable. And this was a monthly magazine, which means that there was ample time to detect the mistake. It's a bit more forgivable in a weekly, but even then it drives me nuts!

The situation is similar to the website that I viewed a couple of weeks ago while doing research for an article. Now, I'm not talking a website that is put out by just anyone. This was an organization's website, meaning that the group has members and supports a specific cause. They are also well-known. There's just no room for such mistakes, especially with all the spellchecks in Word and e-mail programs. It just shouldn't happen!!

But here's a funny oops-Amanda-messed-up story. Last year, when I was interning for a rather well-known magazine (one with a circulation of about 900,000), I detected a mistake on the website. I immediately e-mailed the web editor to alert her because, as you already know, it drives me crazy. Well, in this e-mail I said something like this:

"I noticed a mistake on the website and since I'm a real stickler for grammar, I thought I'd point it out. You see, I think the credibility of a publication certainly goes down when there is a misspelling. Blah blah blah."

The next day, I came in and checked my mail and I had a reply. She thanked me for pointing out the error and told me it had been corrected. At the end of the e-mail she added:

"And my name is Betsy, not Besty, stickler."

Well, I was mortified when I read this. I immediately thought back to the day before and realized that I had written the e-mail as I was running out the door and, as a result, I didn't read it over. That's something I never do! But I couldn't make excuses. My hands had typed faster than my eye could see. It was a definite mistake but I laughed so hard because I looked like an idiot - some stickler!!

In any case, just thought I'd share the woes of the grammar world and how I am completely in love with words. And I love when people use big words. Yet, I'm not so big on reading books. So now you see, I'm a writer who doesn't write or read for pleasure and who's obsessed with grammar. Oh man...