Vague Vagaries

The scene: me driving my fourteen-year-old son to a birthday party a few weeks ago. We were discussing his older brother's attendance at a joint 18th the previous night - his brother was one of the birthday boys, and a boy in his year another. It was one of those parties with the mates - no uncool parents allowed.

Me: 'I think he only drank a vodka/lime/soda last night.'

14yo: 'No, Mum. He drunk a vodka/lime/soda last night.'

Me: 'No, he 'drank'. 'Drunk' requires an auxiliary verb such as 'had', 'have', or 'has'. You can say 'They have drunk', or 'they had drunk', or 'they had stunk', or 'that person must have stunk'. That is the past participle. However, the simple past tense of 'drink' is 'drank', and we say that your brother 'drank a vodka/lime/soda last night.' Speak proper English, and you will always sound a lot smarter than you necessarily are.'

Trip continues in relative silence as 14yo wishes to High Heaven he hadn't opened his mouth because he has a mother who is an insufferable grammar Nazi.

I guess that's been one of the highlights of my life lately. That's tragic, when you think about it. But when preaching the importance of the Oxford comma, I read an immensely funny thing on Twitter the other day. There was a thread asking people to state their favourite sexual positions and acts. Somebody wrote: 'Performing oral on a woman and doggie', and there was a reply about the forgotten Oxford comma! Think about it, peeps: the absence of the Oxford comma in this sentence has relegated the original poster to some kind of depraved bestial dog-fellator.  Unfortunately, this is likely not a good example to use when tutoring school kids, but I might save it for any adults who require some brush-up skills.

I have to shake off the fugue of guilt and depression that has consumed me since the euthanisation of my lovely dog last week. I am getting stronger, and more at peace with it all, but I still miss the old bugger dreadfully.

My latest novel was due to be uploaded for print the other week, so that's something to look forward to. I'm not working on another book just at the moment, but I'm going to put together some short stories.

Watch this space...