The Daily Chai Goes Apeshit About Grammar

Today's Chai Latte is too milky and not quite hot enough. That's what I get for going to the Bean Counter which only professes to serve Starbucks coffee but not be an actual Starbucks. Sad. 

I have a few things to say about grammar and punctuation. My grammar is pretty good, my punctuation needs work, but basically, I know most of the rules. The rules for colons and semi-colons continue to elude me, no matter how often my mother explains them to me, which is why you will never see me use them here. Lots of people think the rules for grammar are overrated, but it's so bloody important for correctly communicating your ideas and thoughts. Even if you don't know the rules exactly, when you see a word or punctuation used incorrectly, your brain stops for a moment to process it. Most of us can figure out what the person means, but the flow of the words has been lost. Or, worse still, the meaning of the message is completely lost and you actually have to take precious seconds to text back a "?" to get clarification. I know. So brutal, right? Empires have been lost over less, of that I am absolutely sure.

I'm just going to give you a few of my very favourites to make my point.

Your welcome. This doesn't make sense. "Your" indicates possession, therefore, when you use it, you are talking about someone's possession. Your dog is ugly. Your story is boring. Your blog is too long and self-righteous. So the ONLY WAY your welcome makes sense is if you follow it by a possession. Your welcome email was appreciated. When you want to be polite after someone thanks you, please write, "You're welcome." Just remember that "you're" is a contraction of "you are." Does it make sense to say, "You are welcome?" Why...YES IT DOES!

Alot. This is possibly my favourite. You know how I know it's not alot? Because my MacBook keeps fucking telling me that it's "a lot" and I actually have to physically click the "x" to tell my MacBook she's wrong. I'm sure her little hard drive heart shivers in agony just a tiny bit every time I do it too. I also know it's not "alot" because it's not "alittle", "alarge", "abig" etc ETC ETC. Okay? Please stop doing this. It drives me mental.

Basically anything with an apostrophe that doesn't need one. This happens when people are trying to make a singular word plural. Here is an example I saw at Target tonight:

Seriously. Are you talking about more than one bra? I'm going to make a huge assumption here and say yes. Many bras are on sale for 30% off. Plural. One bra. Many bras. This sign indicates that one bra owns something. The bra's strap is too tight. The bra's cup is too small. However, as you can see, the salesperson who made this sign didn't finish his or her sentence and has once again left us all hanging. And just as a little bonus...if you were talking about the straps of many bras, it would be bras'. As in, "All the bras' straps were defective." Isn't that fun?

Anyway, my point is that communication, the SOLE PURPOSE OF THE WRITTEN WORD, has not been served here. You are letting us all down Target. Oh, wait. That already happened when you closed 130 stores and left thousands of Canadians without jobs. Hmmm...with that bit of perspective, I feel a little bad about my grammar rant.

No, I don't.


I'm going to leave you with this highly entertaining and disturbingly vulgar guide to help you avoid grammar mishaps.

You're welcome.