Monday, 18 February 2019

Vagaries for Today

I haven't been doing too much writing-wise this week.  I have had vagaries in my mind, but I haven't had a chance to do something concrete about those vagaries. If I am to be paid as a writer, I had best get those vagaries working, had I not? I can take some comfort in that I am being paid to sit with students and teach them to punctuate, and how to structure a strong essay, so I guess I'm using my writing skills in THAT sense, but I would like to be getting more coin for my actual output.

Yesterday, I had cause to visit my home town. It was a filthy hot day. I braved the heat and visited the town cemetery, where I stood in solemn, sad silence at the plot wherein lie my parents and oldest brother.

If you're not much of a grammarian, please note I said I had 'cause' to visit my home town. This means I had a reason to visit. 'Cause' is a noun for a person or event that makes something happen, or a verb to make something happen. However, don't ever say or write something along the lines of: 'The dog hid behind the sofa during the storm cause he's terrified of thunder.' This is very wrong, and those who cultivate this vileness should be taken outside and beaten with spiked shillelaghs.  What you need is the conjunction 'because', which means 'for this reason'. Stop saying 'cause' instead of  'because'. It's evil.

What's brought about this ire is an article I read this afternoon. You have no doubt rightly guessed the author used 'cause' as a conjunction, instead of 'because'. Adding to the heinousness was a hotchpotch of missing apostrophes, fragmented sentences, run-on sentences, incorrectly capitalised words, and proper nouns that weren't capitalised. I sat there in utter delirium, quietly groaning, 'Faark!...Faaar-aaaark!...FAAAAR-AAAAAR-AAAAAAAK!', like a plaintive crow. Reading the crap ruined my day. The knowledge that the author is clearly illiterate and being PAID to write makes me question the justice in the universe. There really isn't any.

Well, I guess I'm just in a bit of a malaise, really. It's stinking hot, still, but I do believe we might be over the worst of it. Bring on winter! Winter, how we have missed thee!

On a funnier note, I had a chance meeting with a man yesterday whom I've not seen for many years. He's the father of an old school friend. I really wanted to say, 'Hey, haven't seen you since you snapped at your kid to get in the car after he asked me to go with him!', but didn't think it would be a politic course of action.

Anyway, thanks for reading what really was a rather melancholic and malcontentedly toned post.  If you're after something to read, you can click on the links to my books in my bio on the blog page, and if you're feeling like channelling your inner Medici, you can give me your patronage at www.patreon.com/SimoneBailey

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