Tragedy and the grammer police

There has been tragedy in the family. A beloved cousin a few years older died suddenly while mowing his lawn. Death is the natural order of things. My cousin is one of those people who were a pleasant encounter. He was embarking on a spiritual journey that would have brought his family much joy and pride. He would have made a fine deacon. He was loved, he is missed.

I am far too devastated to speak of memories of him, and the sudden passing is of a nature makes me think “why” and simultaneously “make the best of every moment”







Early Saturday morning I was reading a blog that places a comic strip, and questions its effectiveness, vulgarity, and if it makes sense. He strip was about a father explaining the manner in which a new roll of toilet paper is used to replace the old one and not use a towel, a common family problem. Someone commented that they were under the impression that the kid was supposed to be bright. My Comment below:


I work for a state agency and until a few years ago we has a summer youth program where youths 16-22 were hired to do light office work and make connections, I’ve been there 20 years and for the first 15 years mostly HS students were hired who had some kind of connection to someone who worked there, every summer it cost more time to keep an eye on them as they were supposed to be honor students but they acted like they had the IQ of a tomato, it never really bothered me because it was my first job after college but I had to shake my head a few times, when the youth turned the internship program into a 10 week spring break fun fest, the agency only hired college students, and as for myself while I never used a towel my dad lectured me on the importance of not leaving him “stranded”



Someone who uses the nom de plume of Proginoskes replied:

DrDAN … They’ve invented these things called “periods”. They break a long sequence of words into readable chunks. You should try it some day.



The next comment was a little in my defense but did bring back a memory of my youth, He goes by Igelino; I think they have traded barbs in the past.

Progi, I thought only girls had those. DrDan uses commas, thankfully, so he must be a boy. We were required to read respected literaturists way back when, and they weren’t called run-on sentences, but rather stream of consciousness. Hee hee.



Way back in the 70’s when I was a very unhappy but precocious 7th grader, I was introduced to the concept of each subject had not only a different teacher, but a different classroom, very bizarre. I , (and all the 7th graders had to dodge the 9th graders who took delight is scaring the hell out of the 7th graders, I remember getting pushed around, but a friend who sold weed (and gave the persona of being Psycho) put out the word. The time structure wasn’t called ‘Sessions” or “classes” but was called “periods” and it said so right on the class schedule. For example
McKinley Class Schedule
1st Period- Subjective Interpretation of the English Language
2nt Period- Area studies of enslaved 3rd world countries
3rd Period- Math you never think you will need until trying to read a bus schedule
4th Period- P.E. or humiliation by future S&M Bondage bottoms
5th Period-Indoctrination of the American Way, morning session Liberal, Afternoon session Kill all Commies

So you be walking the hallways checking out the 8th and 9th grade babes, avoiding the Jocks and speed freaks, run into someone you know and asking them what are they doing after 3rd period and they would say every single time “I don’t have periods only girls have periods” funny the first 100 times but for two years I heard it every single day in the hallways and I think I even heard it a few times in HS.

I was away from the PC for a few hours, (about 12) and I saw what the Proginoskes wrote and out of curiosity I googled his name and as it turns out it is a unseen character similar to a dragon or Seraph with many wings and eyes in a book entitled “A Wind in the Door”. I have never heard of it, but it seems like a book like Naira or the ring books. Proginoskes could also be a female, on the shy side of 21 studying intently for her collage boards and full of venom for poor sentence structure, I probably should have looked up what her user name is and I might have taken a different approach. The anger in the post made me think of a retired English professor or HS teacher who in their spare time wails away at sentence problems. I didn’t think there were grammar problems, and for some reason I write long sentences. I did a spelling and Grammar check on word, admittedly it is a poor substitute for writing professionally. A contribution to a blog shouldn’t count, but every English teacher I’ve had said “no excuse for bad writing”, “spelling always counts”, and I don’t care if it is in the dictionary Mr. DrDAN you can’t use it in polite society.

Irregardless below is my retort (and if you are about to say irregardless is not a word I offer the below)

Irregardless is an informal term commonly used in place of regardless or irrespective, which has caused controversy since it first appeared in the early twentieth century. Most dictionaries list it as "nonstandard" or "incorrect". Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance.
Thanks to Miriam Webster

Proginoskes
You are not the first, nor will you be the last to make that suggestion, (I received critical praise in red ink from a holier than though English Grad student “teaching” 101 in college and he was less than amused when I asked if I could use exclamation points, but I digress) and I probably would have made the same comment Igelino made if I had checked back sooner, but it would have be in a very long sentence of pointless chunks of words whose sequences would have run into each other ad nauseam; I’ve heard of people who experience seizures when there are flashing lights on television, however I must admit I’ve never heard of a perceived excess usage of commas, or lack of menstrual cycles in sentence structure causing them; I will take your advise with a grain of salt (or sand as it is used in limited areas of the southwest), and refrain from hoping you be subjugated to endless donations from the “save the sentence” foundation!

Because I assumed it was a very young male or old male I had a 500 word essay in my head that would have been fun to write, and if I received a response I would have, and still might, it involves starting with the sentence “The boy walked his dog” and carrying it out to 500 words.

To all my friends who might come across this, and agree that my posting are hard to read through, I will try to be mindful.