Republic -- "If you can keep it". (Democracy) Accountability for Jan. 6 insurrection. U.S. Select House Committee on January 6th Hearings will continue in the fall.
QUESTION: Will legislators get their priorities straight to concentrate primarily on doing their jobs legislating and lessen one-upmanship in political game playing?
Ella Fitzgerald -- Accentuate The Positive {The Harold Arlen Songbook}
GRAMMAR GLITCH
"Sticky words" -- I've done it again! I see after publication in my previous post a "their" that should have been a "there", not just once but twice! Here are the offending words I wrote:
"Perhaps we might ask are their there writers producing entertaining older people's stories? Are their there screen writers creating stories for films?"
Oh, woe is me if the grammar monitors noted as the Blogger automatic language didn't catch my mistake. I hastily added those sentences in my last re-reading when the hour was late, tired, and did not conduct further editing. I do know the difference for use of their/there but for some reason when I hastily type, my brain is not selective with those words as it should be. Mostly I'm thinking of what I want to say, I guess.
Strangely, this word glitch seems to occur primarily with these two words, their/there, as I'm not aware of other such homophones that my brain ignores when I type (words that sound the same when spoken but are spelled differently, have different meanings, to which could be added "they're"). Possibly my brain's automatic editing mechanism is short-circuited on these words for some reason. If you ever notice my writing other such incorrect words, let me know as I'm curious.
This isn''t the first time I've become aware of this word mistake. Years ago a blogger whose writing I respected wrote a post about word errors some bloggers made. She specifically mentioned their/there as an example. She expressed concern about the difference mattering for correct usage.
I had to laugh, immediately responding in a comment that I knew I was guilty of mixing their/there. I stated I knew the difference in usage, didn't know why that error occurred and probably needed to take greater care editing. Yet it continues as I've noted periodically in my writing and now this. I long ago alerted my brain to be more careful when I was typing those words. Clearly, my brain function has been unresponsive to my chastising on each occasion. Now I'm wondering what other errors I may be making that I haven't taken the time to identify.
Maybe if I was writing an article for renumeration my brain would give writing those words greater significance. But then, I might also have the luxury of others editing my compositions for such errors before publishing.
Blog writing for me has been a bit more casual than some writing I've done I must admit. It's not that I don't care. I do try to avoid feeling pressured about any aspect of blog writing and publishing. Sometimes I do just sorta throw a piece together at the last minute so am hurried. I tend to think of my blog writing as primarily an entertaining pastime that surprisingly to me others read.
I will confess that over the years when I engage in personal correspondence with friends/family who know me well, beginning with using old-fashioned pen and paper, then using a typewriter, now in emails/texts they and I sometimes misspell words. We may not want to take the time to check the spelling, may use them incorrectly when we can't think of the exact word we want. We may not punctuate correctly on occasion, too, for a variety of reasons. Perchance our lives have been hectic, we're exhausted, our time is limited, we're having interruptions, or more. If any rules have changed we may not have kept up.
We don't judge or concern ourselves with each other's errors, sometimes apologizing or laughing about them, since we know the other is not illiterate. Keeping in touch with legible content is the priority and our relationship is all that matters. If anything is unclear, we question but don't condemn. I guess this falls under, we know the basic writing rules, or most of them, but allow ourselves to break some of them on occasion.
Perhaps I tend to think of you, my blogger buddies, in somewhat the same way as those friends -- that you will overlook some of my shortcomings when you read here as I do reading some of your blog posts.
My apologies if my sometimes-lax writing offends some or discourages reading here. I do recognize and respect the value of more careful writing. I am sometimes irritated by books I read with writing errors since I expect more from them. I tend to judge businesses poorly but laugh at some of them if their advertisements violate the writing rules. I've read some deliberately make such errors just to attract the attention protesters/protestors give them.
I wonder if others of you have become aware of experiencing writing errors you persistently but unintentionally make though you know better, or may allow to occur with less thorough editing?
