Grammar/ General Speech Errors

I was at my city's Pride Festival this weekend manning a booth for the dog rescue organization that we got Miley from; amidst the crowds of people, one man stuck in my mind.

I suppose that I should clarify that I am a bit of a grammar/general speech police, umm officer? I used to have a REALLY off-putting habit of correcting everyone's grammar/ general speech. I've gotten it under control, for the most part- well except for with close friends and Chris.

Grammar mistakes are obvious, but by general speech mistakes I mean everything from misused words (when a person clearly doesn't know what a word means, but they use it anyway), to mixed metaphors, to misquotes.

I'm also slightly obsessive, meaning, grammar and general speech mistakes will stick in my head and I'll dwell on them for days (or years), if I could not correct them. I find the most enjoyable mistakes happen when a person is angry, or overly passionate about whatever their talking about. Of course, after the age of 12 I had to stop correcting strangers, in order to avoid, a well deserved, punch in the face.

Anyway, I thought i would share with you some of my 10 favourite grammar/general speech errors (of course some are recent, and some go year back, and I still can't get over them):


10) When I was 16 I rear ended a Chevrolet Cavalier. It was actually quite a bad accident, and I totaled the Cavalier. When my father was lecturing me about it, amidst his rage he screamed,

"I don't understand how you can be so cavalier about his situation"

Of course there's no direct error here, it was just really hard to keep a straight face.



9) Easily my favourite misused word of all time is "ignorant". For some reason people interchange it with the word rude, in appropriate, or vulgar, all of the time! I over heard a woman, in a fight with her boyfriend, the other day, on her cell phone, and she said

"Don't you raise your voice at me; it's so ignorant!"

What's funny is that misusing the word ignorant, is... well... ignorant.


8) The man from the Pride Festival this weekend. He was on a total rant about the state of the economy, and he said,

"Volunteering is nice, but it doesn't put food in my pockets!"

I thought about it for a while, and I wondered why he'd ever want food in his pockets; you know, as opposed to "money in his pocket", or perhaps "food on his table".


Both 7) and 6) are from my husband's ex-girlfriends. Sweet girls, but didn't really set the bar to high.

7) On the way to a Christmas party Chris picked up his ex-girlfriend and she brought a bottle of wine. After a five minute speech on the merits of the wine, she said,

"So I guess it's a pretty good bottle, but I'm no wine concierge"


6) When playing a game of Trivial Pursuit, one of Chris' other ex-girlfriends read this clue:

"What is the hig-hest mountain range in the world"

It was supposed to be highest.


5) and 4) are complements of Chris himself...he has probably the most brilliant business mind of his generation, but sometimes he has a few speech gems.


5) Chris asked me one day what a scallion was, and I told him; but then I asked him what he thought a scallion was, and he said,

"You know, like 'a dirty rotten scallion' "


4) Chris and I were fighting, and he thought that I was being too bossy, which I probably was; but he blurted out,

"I'm not part of your 'Fun Time Boss Around Gang'! "

Later we deduced that he was referring to me being a bossy child, and the 'Fun Time Boss Around Gang' was my childhood friends.


In my city we have an absolutely precious community college radio station, and they will contributing 3) and 2)

3) On my way to work the other day I heard,

"The teachers of the province are being honoured tonight at the Central Liberry"

I'm not sure if it was an intentional knock against the teachers, but I seriously doubt it.


2) Our Prime Minister used to be Paul Martin, and during our federal election the radio station, accidentally, refereed to him, on numerous occasions, as,

"Prime Martin"


1) Okay, so I can't be so mean to everyone else without admitting that I too occasionally make mistakes. You know how the big line from "The Terminator" is, "Hasta la vista". Well because Arnold Swartzenegger said it, until recently, when I said it to my Austrian relatives, I thought it was in German.


You know, this actually makes me feel a bit better!!

xoxox,
m

URGENT!! SERIOUS BUSINESS!!

Hey Everyone,

This is very important!!

As I mentioned before, Miley (our 5 year old Maltese) was rescued from a puppy mill 3 months ago. She is the sweetest, most loyal girl in the world. People told me that rescue dogs know that they've been rescued, but I didn't believe them until I witnessed it, first hand, with Miley. She is so happy and grateful; literally, everyday she makes my life better, and she make me a better person.

If anyone deserves a chance at a great life it's a rescue dog! Most of them have been through more than we could ever imagine, and all they want is t o be loved and cared for; and what you get in return is an UNCONDITIONAL love and loyalty.

So, all of that being said, at this time of year there is a ridiculously high amount of dogs in pounds across North America. All kinds of dogs too, some from horribly abusive backgrounds; and others from loving families that couldn't care for their dog anymore, even more still that were abandoned simply because their family went on vacation and didn't want to pay for boarding.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE IF YOU HAVE EVER THOUGHT ABOUT DOG ADOPTION NOW IS THE TIME!! IF YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO HAS EVER THOUGHT ABOUT ADOPTION, PLEASE PASS THIS ON!!

There are organizations throughout North America that will transport dogs to you. Below are links to two of them:

This is an Ohio pound, and it is completely jammed (over 50 dogs of all different breeds)!! If you are in Ontario the dogs will be transported by volunteers, at NO COST to you!!

http://search.petfinder.com/shelterSearch/shelterSearch.cgi?animal=&breed=&age=&size=&specialNeeds=&declawedPets=&children=&status=&id=&internal=&contact=&name=&shelterid=OH427&sort=&preview=1

This Shelter transports dogs all over Canada, it is where Miley came from. They foster animals too!! If you can foster a dog until it gets adopted you can do that too, no long term commitment necessarily required!!

http://members.petfinder.com/~ON229/MAIN.html

These dogs will come with up to date shots, and medical treatments, as well as being spayed or neutered if age appropriate. For a ridiculously small adoption fee (less than you would ever pay for a new dog) too!!

PLEASE THINK ABOUT IT!! THIS IS URGENT!!

If you have any questions about any of the dogs from, either website, please e-mail Lois at loisjackson@sympatico.ca

Thanks!! At least take a look at the dogs, you never know!!

Participation

Lately I've been trying to figure out why I end up in so many ridiculous situations, and I think it's because I just can't help myself. Like this morning, I was listening to talk radio, and the issue of dog parks came up, and it's always bothered me that every time I take my girls to the small dog park there are people and their dogs pushing the size limit...ooo wait that sounds awful; I mean just the dogs are too big!

So, I'm thinking in my head about how frustrated I am, and I can't very well kick people out of the dog part as some sort of power crazy vigilante

But calling into a radio show is ridiculous, and absolutely tacky and tasteless.

Yet somehow, seconds later I find myself, "On Air", bitching about people and their over weight dogs.

This isn't an isolated incident either. All throughout school I was like "Miss Participation". And I used to say to myself, in my head, before class, "I'm not putting my hand up today, I'm way too overzealous, no one cares that I have something to say about everything"

Then something would happen, and by the time I realized what was going on, my hand was in the air.

I think it's because I get embarrassed when I watch other people get embarrassed. I think because I'm embarrassed so much, I own all embarrassment around me. And there's nothing more embarrassing than to asking a question in front of an audience, and having no one respond! So I'd often respond even if I had no clue what the answer was.

Although this may seem very compassionate and charitable, I also have problems paying complete attention; so I would also respond, having no idea what the question was.

Throughout my education I got a lot of "Well, North Dakota is close Mary; but the answer is actually 6"...or "I think it's great that your against stabbings Mary; but I was asking what your opinion was on the current situation in the wheat industry"

Dry Subs and Spanking Strangers

Interesting week...

On Monday my friend Dylan came to visit me around lunch time, and we both felt like Subway, so she took down my order and went out to get it.

Well I soon realized I forgot to tell her to put light mayonnaise and mustard on it! Seriously, have you ever eaten a dry sub? Why don't I just roll over and die?!

So, I tried calling her cell phone, but she didn't have it, because the Subway is like almost right across the street. In a panicked, I collected my thoughts and decided it would probably best to call the Subway.

It was lunchtime, and extremely busy, and apparently Dylan was absolutely mortified when the girl behind the counter yelled out, "Is there a Dylan here?"; confused and bewildered she answered. "Well, Mary wants light mayonnaise and mustard on her sub"

So even though Dylan was embarrassed beyond belief...what was I supposed to do? Really??



Today I went shopping with my friend Jen and we went into a bookstore, and I bought 3 hard cover books, and we resumed walking around the mall.

I began unconsciously swinging my bag containing my books; and as I've mention before, I have arms that are above average in length.

I was so wrapped up in my conversation with Jen that I didn't realize we were walking particularly briskly. My head was still turned to the side when I heard a rather noticeable WHOMP...

I looked up to see that I had just squarely spanked the woman in front of me with about 1500 hardbound pages of book; I mean, I really gave her ass a good paddling.

She jumped up and gave me an extremely stern half turn. I couldn't even explain really, and I think she thought the whole incident was fully calculated, like I go around malls whomping people in the ass with literature.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas was wonderful as always!! But it didn't start out exactly as I had planned (what ever does, anyways?)

I was coming from mid-East Canada, and my friend Suzie was coming from mid-West Canada, and we were supposed to meet in Las Vegas at roughly 10 p.m. (Las Vegas time)

My flight was delayed an hour and half, but obviously that's not a tremendously big deal I was landing before Suzie anyways. I called Suzie and told her about my delay, and she said it was cool, because her plane had been delayed 20 minutes anyways. So I eventually turned off my cell phone, and boarded my plane.

When I landed, and turned my cell phone back on, it was fully crammed with voicemail and text messages. So I immediately called Suzie. She informed me that a duck had flown into her plane, therefore her flight was grounded until tomorrow. Obviously.

So for the first day and a half I was on my own. Fabulous.

So when I arrived at the hotel room I ordered room service, and a bottle of champagne. However, when the lady on the other end of the phone asked me how many glasses I'd like, I panicked...not wanting her to think I was an alcoholic (because I'm sure a person ordering a bottle of champagne for themselves is the most outrageous thing shes ever seen), I said that I would require 2 glasses. Then she asked me if I would be needing any chocolate covered strawberries, and I was in too deep to turn back, so I pretend someone else was in the room with me and asked, "Hey hun, do you want any strawberries or anything...no? Okay".

So now I had to come up with a plan to fool the waiter that would be coming into my room any minute, and realizing that there was no one else in the room. So I turned on the shower, and scattered some clothing around the bathroom door, for effect.

The whole time the waiter was in my room, I kept saying to myself "How would a person who has a friend in the shower act?". Throughout the 45 second interaction I kept referencing things such as "my friend needed a shower after the flight", and "my friend really loves to shower".

The waiter finally left, being none the wiser! Well done Mary! Totally worth it!

Benji

This weekend we went to a friend's kid's birthday party. I'll be honest, when you don't have any kids it can be a bit weird being at a little kid's birthday party, because they're geared towards kids, and; to put it mildly, I don't really care for most kids...but this party was actually pretty fun, because there were more grown ups than children, and the kid was young enough that he really didn't care.

It was held at the kid's grandparents, who are a delightful Italian couple in their 60's, they live alone with their old shit tzu, Benji. The grandparents are really fun, and easy to talk to, and we've been to the house a couple of times before.

About an hour into the party Chris pipes up, across the room, to the grandpa "Hey, where's Benji?". Chris starts looking around the room for him, but what he doesn't see is the grandma's head goes down, and she starts to cry...So Chris asks louder "Where is he? I haven't seen him all day!"

At this point I elbow Chris in the rib caged, and throw him a "shut your face look"

So Chris goes "Just a minute honey! Benji? here boy!", and he starts beckoning him with a whistle

Now the Grandma bursts out in uncontrollable sobs, and the husband finally says, "We had to put him down two weeks ago"

Chris goes bright red and says "I'm so sorry, I had no idea"

The grandma tries to tell us the story, but at this point she is sobbing so hard, she can't even speak

Everyone rushes over to comfort the grandma; and now they all start reminiscing about Benji, and all of their other pets who have died, so now almost everyone at the party is crying

I pull Chris aside and say "When someone doesn't answer when you ask them where their 17 year old dogs is, let it go!"

It took a good 45 minutes before anyone felt like getting back to the kid's birthday celebration.



Okay, so I'm in Las Vegas for the next week without access to a computer, but I'm sure I'll have some good stories when I get back!!

xoxoxo,
m

Weekend Recommendations!!

Okay,

I'm going to switch things up slightly, because it's Friday, I thought I might give everyone my movie/book recommendations for the weekend. Why? Because it has recently come to my attention that there is A LOT of good stuff out there, movies and books, that don't receive the credit they deserve!

Okay, so this weekend I think you should look into renting the following movies:

The Castle - with Michael Caton
It's an Australian comedy that no one seems to have ever heard of, and it's sooo good!! If you are lucky enough to find a copy of it, it's definitely worth watching!! It's like one of my top 10 comedy movies of all time!


The Brother's Solomon - with Will Forte and Will Arnett (Amy Poehler's husband)
Okay, so this is like Dumb and Dumber if they had IQ's of 165. It's amazing!! It also is like not an overly well known movie. It came out last year, and it didn't do very well, but I don't know why, because it's really good. It also shouldn't be hard to find a copy.


Okay, so if you're looking for a good book this weekend I would recommend the following:

Can You Keep A Secret? - by Sophia Kinsella
I don't know what it is, but lately I only enjoy reading books by British women and gay men. Sophia Kinsella is the author of the "Shopaholic" series; but this book didn't seem to get as much hypes, and it's very cute! Sort of romantic comedy.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim- by David Sedaris
This book is like laugh out loud, sooooo funny! He's the brother of Amy Sedaris, and the book has stories of his childhood and adult life, and it's awesome! His childhood is basically exactly the same as my husbands (Greek family in the 70's), but he's gay; and his adult life is...well, absolutely brilliant!


Okay, one quick awkward moment:
We recently received a phone call from one of Chris' friends telling us that she and her husband were splitting up, and the news/her wounds were fresh. They would be having joint custody of their two kids, and she would like to start going out and having fun on the weekends that she didn't have her kids...

So Chris responds with "Yeah, well we want to ask you to come out with us a bunch of times, but that was back when you had a family"

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!