New Year's Resolutions

Is it too late to discuss New Year resolutions? Oh well. I’m going to talk about it anyway.

For those who don’t know, I’m a big grammar nerd. I was an English major in college and now work in publishing. I don’t go so far as to correct people’s grammar (well most people), but I sure would love to. My brother thinks I should. He read somewhere that not correcting people's grammar is like letting “people shit in the pool and not saying anything”.

I think social media has made people’s grammar so much worse. It drives me crazy to see posts on facebook where people do not know (or are too lazy to figure out) the differences between words such as to, two, and too, or they’re, there, and their. This is learned in elementary school!! And then there is the incorrect use of the word literally. “I literally just died”. No, you literally did not die.  

Anyway…I digress. One of my new year’s resolutions was to improve the way I speak. So many people today use the words “like” and “goes” when talking about dialogue. For example, “I was like what is going on?” Or “He goes, “tell me more”.

I do this more often than I’d like. So, I’m trying to stop. And it is difficult. Very difficult. I tend to talk quickly and so I’m trying to slow down my speech and really think about what I’m trying to say before I slip into my old ways. I have almost given up…it’s very easy to just continue to speak that way. It feels natural (unfortunately). I’m working on it though. I think it will be a longer process than I realized, but I guess that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for! It would be easier to give up, but I don’t want to be one of the many people shitting in the pool.