Hi Susan and Alan! Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you enjoyed the poem. It's good to have a sense of humor about our crazy English language!

Hi Barb, I think other languages have their exceptions to the rules, but none of the other languages I know (all Romance languages) have the kind of irregularities and exceptions that English does! It sure makes teaching ESL a lot of fun!

Hilarious! So simple, so true. Facial expressions, body language, tone of voice -- it's all part of language and communicating. Love it! Thanks for sharing.

Hi Victoria! Thanks for stopping by. I'm happy to be able to share my passion by way of a blog. As a freelance copyeditor, grammar and language are what I do for a living. What a great way to make a living! It's also something I do for "fun." And I've been reading some of your blog posts over at Penny Jar. What a great outlet blogging is for us writers! You're working on your memoirs? See you over at SW!

Rob, You are correct about the placement of that prepositional phrase. It should definitely be a shoot-off from the predicate. I was just so thrilled to have found an image of a diagrammed sentence, I didn't really look at it closely. Glad to hear you're teaching kids to diagram. And I'm always glad to hear from English teachers who appreciate the importance of grammar. Thanks for stopping by, and keep up the good work!

Your grandmother spoke wisely, Clew. Cliches and common swear words are the bane of eloquent and meaningful communication.

Nick and Clew, The subjunctive tense is one of the most difficult. The subjunctive should be used when expressing doubt, improbability, fantasy, and the like. I tell my students that it helps to remember the song from the Fiddler on the Roof, "If I WERE a Rich Man." I think the problem is that there is sometimes a very fine line between what is possible and probable and what is fantasy or wishful thinking. Now .... If only everyone were as thoughtful and intelligent as my readers ....

Hi Clew! Thanks for finding me. Blog on, sistah!

Lori, I struggled long and hard with that aspect of the sentence, too, and thought about how one month could possibly equal 60 days. I'm still not sure what the intent was, but I think a fair interpretation would be: "show us that you have 30 days' worth of income over the past 60-day period." It's a shame when we find ourselves struggling to understand what someone has written.

Thank you, my friends, for stopping by and commenting. Kristine - Special thanks for helping me calm down and understand what goes on behind some of those corporate screens. I appreciate that inserting a human being into these computerized "fill-in-the-forms" would only add another layer of delay. Unfortunate. My apologies to the poor sap (errr, I mean customer service representative) upon whom I laid some cordiality regarding the "company's" decisions about their P.R. language. In the future, I will try (I really will) to be more tolerant of and the things that computers demand of us.

Hi Dwight, Thanks for stopping by. And thanks for the comments. By all means, feel free to re-post my piece "How Egregious" (with credit and a link). I think we all should spread the good word about our great language! I'll check out your blog when I get a chance. :-)

I'm frustrated, and I'm going back to the old TypePad. When I logged on, I couldn't get away from my Account Page. I just wanted to look at my blog, and I couldn't find (and didn't have the patience to keep looking).

Hi Lynsey -- Thanks for checking in. I'm glad to be a part of your Monday morning laugh!

Hi Lori, Almost "gotcha," huh? LOL!

Thanks for the comment, Heck. I, too, have learned to "let go" ... for the most part. For example, I don't constantly correct my nieces' grammar mistakes -- just sometimes. But when it comes to copyediting and proofreading, the prescriptivist in me rears her beautiful head and roars!

Thanks for the comment, Renee. As a matter of fact, I did post about "that" versus "which" last year around Halloween time. You'll find it under the Archives, October 2008. I hope you find it helpful!

I love the way you think, Dan! Thanks for showing some love to us copyeditors. You know the saying, "behind every great man ...."? Well, behind every great book is a great copyeditor."

Yep, it can be a real struggle when the ideas and words don't flow. Many people think "writers" can just sit down and the words spew forth. But I think it takes a lot more willpower, concentration, and self-discipline than people realize. Freelancing can be just as demanding. Thanks for the comment, Helen!