Look, I was an English major.
I have two freelance jobs: writing and editing.
I enjoy reading properly written things.
THAT HAVING BEEN SAID:
Split infinitives. I don’t give a shit about split infinitives. Indeed, now that most reputable reference people have realized that there has NEVER been a rule against them, you should be neither penalized nor chastised for using them. Indeed, you are more than welcome to boldly split infinitives all over the damn place.
Double negatives. In my world, there ain’t no such thing as a double negative. You know why? Because you know damn well what they mean when you hear one. This is English, not bloody math. You don’t add -1 and +1 for the negatives and end up with—HA!—a negation. It doesn’t work like that and it never has.
Ending a sentence with a preposition: First, insert crude sexual joke about the word “dangling” here. Second, oh come-the-fuck ON! Do you not understand what the person is saying? Do you not recognize that when the exceptions to a rule nearly equal the proper applications there’s something fundamentally wrong? I refuse to look over everything I write to be certain that something you understand can be changed into something you can’t understand. What do I need to do that for? Oops, my bad. For what do I need to do that, you fucking wanker?
Lay vs. Lie. Do you have difficulty understanding when somebody says “I was lying down” as opposed to “I was laying down?” If you’re not seriously critiquing somebody’s work, leave it alone. Even I have to think about this bastard when I have to write/edit it in a piece. The only time it matters is that it's rude to call somebody "a good lie."
MINIS:
Use commas wherever the hell you want to. If you think that you need a comma, put one there. If you forget to put one there and you should have one there, oops.
Stop pretending that “It’s about ten o’clock” is wrong and that I should be saying “It’s almost/nearly/approximately ten o’clock.”
In addition to being a noun, access is now a verb as well. Languages evolve. Cope.
Sentence fragments? I like them.
Ain’t IS a goddamned work, you nitpicking ninny.
I can have six items or less, I don’t have to have six items or fewer.
That should do for now.
b
