Grammar

My husband has a smart phone. We go out to dinner, hear a song playing in the restaurant and within three minutes know the name of the song, the artist, the movies it was featured in, and which drug the singer overdosed on. Then, when we get home, we use his phone as a flashlight to illuminate the keyhole in our door. It’s an amazing device. Me, I have a dumb phone. It rings. I answer. I talk for a minute or two. Then I hang up. Advertisers would have me feeling like a chump for my inferior technology.

For some time now, President Obama’s birth certificate has been posted online. Yet some people refused to believe he was born in this country. Recently, Obama released the long-form copy of his birth certificate. Some people still wouldn’t believe it. Last week, the president announced that Osama Bin Laden was dead. Some people refuse to accept that. There are many conclusions we can draw from this — some fascinating, some disturbing. But one fact we can glean here is more alarming, more bone-chilling than any other.

Over the years, I’ve talked to a lot of people who believe that, from a grammar standpoint at least, they grew up underprivileged. The “I don’t know as much as I should about grammar” feeling is rampant and puts a lot of stake in the word “should” — presuming that somebody should have tried harder to school us on the subject. Implicit in this mindset is the idea that, surely, others had it better. So it would be easy to assume that the offspring of two English teachers would have an unfair edge in the grammar game.

Once you’ve seen “embarrass,” and “supersede” and “its” in print a million times, there’s a chance that the next time you write one of these words, you’ll get it right without thinking about it — a better chance than for people who don’t read as much, anyway. That’s why an SAT test prep company I worked for years ago had us tell students in our vocabulary course: read, read, read. But every once in a while, I come across a spelling or punctuation issue so odd that no amount of innate word smarts can save you. This came to my attention recently when a very word-savvy friend, author Carolyn Howard-Johnson, asked me how to write “conscience’ sake.” “Seems like something you’d remember if you’d ever looked it up,” she wrote.

I've just been accused of schadenfreude — taking pleasure at someone else's misfortune. I'll admit I'm not above this rather base impulse. For example, the name Larry Craig still makes me smile. But in this case, I plead not guilty. You can be the judge. I was reading a CNBC finance story on a Yahoo news site recently when I came across this passage: "Asset allocation strategists haven't had an easy time in recent years. They've grappled with deflation, recession, plummeting U.S. stock markets and surging foreign economies.

I have a confession to make. I?ve always been insensitive to allergy sufferers. Growing up in a depressed Florida suburb, it seemed that only the spoiled kids had allergies (?spoiled? meaning anyone who knew both their parents and didn?t drink milk purchased with food stamps because their mom needed all their cash for cigarettes and jug-shaped containers of wine). These were the kids who got taken to doctors even when they weren?t doubled over in pain or bleeding to death. Spoiled brats.