Before I get into the nuts and bolts of all things grammar, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and my credentials for this blog (of which I have many.....obviously).
My name is Emily, and I am currently a junior attending Washington State University. I am double majoring in English and History—hoping to become a junior high or high school teacher—and am minoring in Spanish. I do consider myself to be a bit of a "grammar Nazi." (I hope nobody takes offense at that!) When peer-editing or proof-reading someone else's paper, I can't help but be distracted by the large quantities of grammatical errors, and my natural instinct is to correct them. One of my biggest pet peeves is comma placement. People just suck at using commas! Not that I'm the pro, of course, although I do tend to think that I know grammar better than most people my age.
I went to a parochial school, kindergarten through eighth grade, and we had grammar drilled into our brains. It is so refreshing to think that I got to have the experience of using and referring to an actual grammar textbook. We learned a lot, from sentence diagramming to memorizing all 40 prepositions. When I was in junior high, I didn't feel particularly knowledgeable. I knew the material well, and I enjoyed learning it, but I thought that everyone learned that same grammar at some point in time! Yet, when I entered into the public school system, I discovered that I was wrong.
Of course I am not trying to criticize our public school English teachers, especially because I wish to become one myself, I am merely saying that many students do not know their grammar! I can't even list how many kids complained when we had to correct "MUG" sentences in my freshman year of high school. The majority of them struggled with simple grammar that I had learned three years ago. I have even encountered this problem here at WSU. Hence, my blog....Digesting Grammar (or Grammar Cram if you prefer).
How does one digest grammar? Grammar can be digested two ways; the first way is if you're a grammar freak like me and actually enjoy it: One must gobble it down as if it is a giant bowl of ice cream, making sure to lick the bowl, always going back for seconds. The second way to digest grammar can be compared to when your parents forced you to eat spinach as a child. You had to cram it in your mouth slowly, and you tried to hold it in there without swallowing, but then you realized that there was no possible way to spit it out, so you proceeded to gulp it down as quickly as possible. But after a while of eating spinach, you began to realize that it's not so bad...
So my goal of this blog is to hopefully get you to realize that grammar itself isn't so bad. I will be making weekly posts in which I summarize what I learned that week as well as respond to other prompts. So sit back, grab a pretzel, and enjoy. But remember, it's okay if different parts of grammar take longer to digest than other parts! I'm cheering for you. :)
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