Okay, so…

Umm…

See, umm… There seems to be this website somewhere called “glmux.com”…

I mean, I guess that’s their name, because I see it a lot in e-mail addresses…

Because a lot of different people with that mail server post a lot of comments on the blog posts on my website…

And the comments are really nice…

Very nice…very enthusiastic and very complimentary…

Here are just a few recent ones:

“Thanks for a really fantastic blog. It was very helpful. I am just so glad I found this.”

“This is an excellent site! A lot of useful information and handy tips, thank you =)”

“Wonderful website, how do you get all this information? I’ve read a couple of posts on your site and I love your writing style. Thanks a million, keep up the good work.”

“I browsed through this amazing site and there’s so much handy information; saved to my bookmarks.”

“I’m fascinated. I do not think I know anyone who understands just as much about the topic. You need to make a career of it, honestly; awesome blog.”

Seriously, those are all lovely, aren’t they? And I get messages like that just about every day from a wide range of people from glmux.com…

Of course, you don’t need to look for those comments on the blog posts in my website. Because they’re not there. Because you know how this story plays out…

When I saw the first of these lovely compliments, shortly after my website first launched, I was so thrilled! I either Skyped with or phoned my fabulous website designer, who is my forever web master/guru, and I probably said words to the effect of “They like me! They really like me!”

And there was a pause. In hindsight, I recognize it as a sad pause. And I heard my brilliant web master say, “Oh, honey, that’s spam.”

And I was, like, What?

“It’s spam.”

And I was, like, You mean they say that to everyone? And she was, like, Yeah, because it’s spam.

So now I go through the e-mail notifications I receive every day announcing that comments have been made on my blog posts, and I mark the ones that are spam as “Spam.”

And I do read them. Unless, of course, they’re in the Cyrillic alphabet. And there’s a little voice inside me that says, and probably always will say, “Gosh, maybe these are real people and not machines, and even though it’s their job to send out spam messages, maybe they did take a moment to read my blog post and maybe they really did find it charming or inspiring or funny…”

Well, I imagine I’ll get a lot of comments from glmux.com about this particular post, huh! Some may not convey great enthusiasm about what I’ve written this time, huh!

And some, I can promise you, will have absolutely atrocious grammar and syntax. Seriously, the ones I quoted above? I got so tired of typing “[sic],” I just went ahead and corrected them all; gmlux.com, you really should consider hiring a proofreader.

Because you know those silly spammers seriously have no sense of the significance of the superb semicolon…

And absolutely no appreciation of alliteration, apparently…

The post SPAM? A LOT! appeared first on Heidi Mastrogiovanni.

Okay, so I have to own up to something of which I am not proud…

Let me tell you a little story…about me…being insufferable.

The scene of my epic breakdown of grace and decorum was one of the meetings of the fabulous book club to which I belong.

It’s called the Roaring Laughter Ladies Book Club. The women in it are among the most wonderful people in my world and in the world. Kind, smart, caring, hilarious, delightful, loyal…you get the idea; you can pretty much fill in any laudatory adjective here and it will apply to them. This is not hyperbole. They rock.

And I was being insufferable in their company…

So this post is, in addition to being a confession, an apology to my lovely friends, who deserve much better than they got from me on that terrible day.

Please imagine that the voice saying these words is using a tone that is smug, sneering, and singsong… In short, all the things you don’t want a voice you are hearing to be.

Needless to say, this is me, gassing on and on at the book club meeting…

“I just hate when people use the word ‘read’ as a noun. I hear it all the time. It was a good read. What is that all about? It’s a verb! To read! I hate when people make verbs into nouns! Why does our beautiful language have to change? That’s called evolving? I call it DE-volving!”

And then I sat back with a self-righteous, tight little smile, and continued to chug the delicious wine/champagne/vodka (I think it was champagne for me on that particular day) that we always have at our gatherings.

There were a few moments of silence, during which my dear friends were, I suspect and fear, thinking “Jeez, is she a pill, or what?”

And then there was a response, and please forgive me, because I don’t remember who said this… Whichever Roaring Laughter Lady said it, please jump right in and claim your due applause in the Comments section of this post.

“But that happens with ‘walk’ all the time…”

And I froze as soon as I heard that sentence being completed.

Because I immediately realized that I had nothing to say in return…

No possible response…

Because one of the things I love most in the world is walking. I just love taking a walk. It’s one of the great pleasures of my life. I love the joy and relaxation and re-energizing that the word “walk” conveys. As a verb. And as a noun. And I have used it both ways. For decades. Without giving it a second thought.

And so I would just like to apologize for being such a pill. I’m duly humbled and truly sorry.

I sincerely hope this post has been a good read for you. And, I swear, I didn’t even wince while I typed that…

But I still think that saying/writing/thinking “try and [do something]” instead of “try to [do something]” is clumsy and lazy and just plain wrong, and always will be…

But…

I think I may be forced to realize that I will be reading and hearing “try and” far more than I will be reading and hearing “try to” and maybe I’m fighting a losing battle here and maybe I should just get over myself with that one, too…

I think I even saw “try and” in The New Yorker, a.k.a. my standard reference on all things bright and gorgeous about our fabulous language, but I’m not 100% sure…

Maybe our beautiful language has evolved to the point where “try and” is not only correct, it’s more correct…

Maybe…

I’ll try to keep you posted on my evolving thoughts about that subject…

The post A Blog Post Wherein I Get Over Myself appeared first on Heidi Mastrogiovanni.

This post has to be about language. And grammar. Stuff I love and stuff that drives me flipping crazy. Herewith a staccato selection of highs and lows, as viewed from my soapbox.

It’s not “[insert name] and I’s house.” The possessive is “my,” for the love of all that is gracious and holy in this wacky world. I have been hearing and reading “I’s” far too often lately. Hearing or reading it once would be once too often. As far as I know, the construction “I’s” doesn’t exist. It is completely and irredeemably wrong. My opinion, as you can no doubt tell, is not on any level humble in the case of this dreadful new blight on the gorgeous English language.

I am a stickler for good grammar. I do not appreciate the “language is a living thing and it evolves” school of thought. To me, that signifies that something that was once wrong is now correct because we’re too lazy to be careful in our writing and our speaking.

Take a look at my personal Facebook page (I try to be less strident on my Author Page on Facebook because, you know, marketing ‘n’ stuff…). I get on my soapbox about grammar on a regular basis on my personal page. Enough so that close friends and also people I only know through Facebook will pay me the compliment of posting something about grammar on my page because they thought of me when they saw it.

This mug is an excellent example. This mug is my psyche painted on ceramic.

The Oxford comma? No discussion. I always use it. ALWAYS.

I’m still not always 100% sure when to use “which” and when to use “that.”

When to use “lay” and when to use “lie” only recently sunk in for me…kind of.

I love that “How come?” means “Why?” in English. As far as I know, that’s not the case in French or German. “Wie kommen?” “Comment venir?” I don’t think so…

And how much do we love that the words “psyche” and “ceramic” start with different letters, but still have the same opening sound?

Because it’s ENGLISH and it is FABULOUS! And it is such a difficult language to learn because sometimes there are no rules and you just have to KNOW that it’s pronounced that way.

I have family and a lot of friends in Europe. They all speak English beautifully. Because they started learning it in school at a very early age. Why we don’t, in most cases, teach foreign languages here in the U.S. until middle school is beyond me.

And when I complain to my European friends and relatives about the intricacies of their native languages (WHY do some adjectives in French appear before the noun and others appear after? That is CRAZY!), they tell me to please get over myself because why is “though” pronounced like “go,” “through” like “too,” and “cough” like “off,” while “rough” has an “uff” sound, “plough” sounds like the “ow” in “flower,” and “thought” sounds like the “aw” in “saw,” even though they all share the same “ough” letters and what’s the rule with pronouncing “ough” anyway and how do you know when it’s pronounced which way?

And that’s when I hang my head in hypocrisy and mutter something to the effect of, “Well, I’m not sure that there is a rule…you just…have to…know…”

I guess at this point I should confess that I tend to overuse ellipses in my writing…

I learned German when I was two. My mother was German, and so my family spent a lot of our vacation time visiting her parents and sisters and their families in Bavaria.

It is ridiculously easy for toddlers to learn a foreign language. Family rumor has it that I was speaking German in a day or two. And when I speak it now, I don’t think in English and translate. I just think and speak in German.

I do not, however, know when to use der or die or das (or dem or den) or whatever the hell is going on with all those forms of the three definite articles in German. Masculine, feminine, and neutral. French has just two, masculine and feminine. Just two. Yeah, WAY easier in French. Not.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH HAVING JUST ONE DEFINITE ARTICLE? HUH?

It’s “the.” It’s always “the” in English, no matter which noun follows it, no matter what its position in the sentence. Nice and easy, people! Just like it should be!

I’m learning French as an adult. A very different experience from my effortless absorption of German. But it’s fun and I love learning another language, especially such a gorgeous one.

Okay, back to my own fabulous native language… What has happened to the letter “t”? And the letter “d”? Why are they being ignored? I watch that show I’m addicted to… I can’t believe I’m admitting this… Yes, I can’t stop watching “Say Yes to the Dress”…and the brides are shopping for their dream wedding dress and they say they want something in “sah-in” and something that’s “eleganh” and if they disagree about something they say, “No, I dih-en.”

CAN WE PLEASE JUST PRONOUNCE THE LETTERS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PRONOUNCED? PLEASE?

In German, you pronounce just about every letter in the word. In French, not so much. And in German, all nouns have initial caps, not just proper nouns. In French, the days of the week and the months of the year do not have initial caps. Crazy and kind of fun, no? Nein? Non?

So, in French, the sentence “I went to Paris on a Tuesday in January” reads: “Je suis allé à Paris un mardi en janvier.” And I’m reading that and I’m thinking, what, no Mardi, no Janvier?

Meanwhile, here’s a sentence from Goethe’s “Die Leiden des jungen Werther”: “Ihr könnt seinem Geist und seinem Charakter eure Bewunderung und Liebe, seinem Schicksale eure Tränen nicht versagen.” I just have to point out that none of those words with initial caps are proper nouns! They are just regular old nouns! Crazy, huh? And kinda cool, to my way of thinking.

Sometimes you have to write “kinda” instead of “kind of”…because it serves your writer’s voice better that way.

By the way, the opinions expressed herein are entirely and only my own. As if that wasn’t already abundantly clear.

Yiddish, I must add, is also delightful. I can understand a lot of it because I speak German. And I lived in New York City for sixteen years, so there’s also that…

Schmutz. That’s a great word. In Yiddish and in German.

Oh, and while I’m thinking of it, you don’t create the plural with an apostrophe! NO! Do not use an apostrophe! My family is not the Mastrogiovanni’s. We are the Mastrogiovannis. Okay?

And you don’t feel badly unless you are touching something and you are doing a substandard job. You feel bad about society’s growing inability to pronounce the letter “t.” Not badly. Adverb. Adjective. There’s a difference.

Phew. That felt really good. I think it’s time to break out the wine and pour a big glass and see if there’s a marathon of “Say Yes to the Dress” on any of the cable channels. Thank you for the opportunity to share my raving and venting and ranting and to go on and on and on. Next week, back to the saga of the sweetest souls in my cat and canine cavalcade, starring Maggie the Lemon Beagle!

The post A Blog Post Wherein I Get Giddy And Agitated About Definite Articles And Apostrophes… appeared first on Heidi Mastrogiovanni.