a little secret or two...

I'm going to tell you a secret. don't get your hopes up, its not scandalous (well, unless you're easily scandalised by syntax) but, here we go...I'm not a big fan of capital letters. I think they're over-rated. oh, ok, sure, they can serve a purpose, and sometimes they're useful ("I" for example, is one that I think deserves a capital) they're good when you really want to make a POINT, or play with the way your words look, but for the most part, I think that capital letters are pretty redundant. I mean, new york is just New York, right? you wouldn't read about someone going shopping in new york and think "oh my gosh, where is this fabulous place I've never heard of?" would you? (if the answer is yes, well...quite frankly there is little hope for you. jog on).

but apart from all that, I just don't think that upper case is as pretty as lower case. check out how cute I am, writing in lower case, blah blah blah.

so that is secret number one. I warned you, not scandalous. but someone pointed out that people might read this blog and think that I didn't know how to write because I sometimes don't capitalise properly. (admittedly, I think there has been little interest from people who I don't know, so its not necessarily an issue yet but still, it could happen). so for all of you stranger dangers out there who don't know that in bijou-land small=cute, this is for you. I can capitalise, I just choose not to. so there.

(the eagle-eyed amongst you might notice that some of my posts have capitals and some don't. there is a simple explanation, some of them are drafted in word and copied over. word likes to correct you if you don't start a sentence with a capital letter - it makes poetry incredibly frustrating!!! - but this generally means I am more prone to capitals when using word. when I haven't used word, ta-da!!! no capitals).

secret number two. I'm not brilliant at grammar. I use punctuation to make things sound like I want them to sound in my head, so for everyone who isn't me, I can only assume that you read it the same way and understand. sometimes this means that things are more stream of consciousness than grammatically correct. sometimes it's because I choose not to do it (I know, for example, that I shouldn't start a sentence with an and or a but), and sometimes it's because I just don't know. I'm quite anal about my there/they're/theirs - it drives me absolutely fruit loopy when people get them wrong (when I was a civil servant, I used to ignore emails from senior managers where the incorrect "there" was used) but I can't for the life of me get my head round it's/its. the information just won't stay in there. I don't know why. I'm a bright girl, but for the most part, I don't get it. so I ignore it (I know I used it correctly before, but that's because I've been dictionary.comming whilst typing this). so whilst I'm militant about "there" I am incredibly lax about "its". I like grammar when it suits me, which is when I understand it and find it easy.

I used to work with a woman who didn't know what an apostrophe was. she called it an "up-comma" and went through a phase of sending out emails that read a bit like she,d never written anything that,d ever required an up-comma before, because surely you,d look at that and realise that it,s wrong, wouldn,t you?

needless to say, upon receiving the email I had a massive rant. (I am also very careful to ensure that any emails I send out at work make sense, I would hate for anyone to read one and think that I'm stupid). looking back, part of me thinks that perhaps she just didn't understand so chose to ignore the apostrophe/comma debate, but a bigger part of me thinks that surely no-one can honestly think that that,s how normal people write? hmmm. lazy militant, that's me.

another thing that drives me mental is american english. z where s's should be, a distinct lack of u's...I'm not very good at spelling any more (that is definitely the fault of the computer, its inherent laziness on my part. I have no excuse) but I really, really, really hate it when the spell check tries to correct me and make me spell in american. and on that very tenuous link...here is a very old poem. it's a bit silly. goodnight!! xx

Americans can't spell "colour"

Oh, what have the Americans,
got against the letter "U"?
They leave it out of colour
and out of neighbour too.
What if they were prejudiced
against the letter "O" as well?
Then colour would be clr
a very awkward word to spell.
I guess we should just all be thankful
they don't mind "L" "R" and "C"
or there'd just be a space like this



where colour ought to be.