There is a day for everything, but I could not let this one slip passed unnoticed.
May 31 is NATIONAL SPEAK IN COMPLETE SENTENCES DAY.
No really. It is. I’m not sure most people actually know what a complete sentence should look like. What parts it should contain. Most of the people with whom I interact — not on WordPress where we have a shockingly high level of people who understand grammar and punctuation — but the rest of the world where no one knows what an adverb is or why they should avoid their overuse.
How could they know what an adverb is when they don’t know what a verb is either? For that matter, they don’t know what are an object, subject, clause … or the difference between a semi-colon and a comma (okay, that’s a tough one, so I’ll let that one slide).
Imagine if, for one day, everyone used complete sentences! I would like to add that imagine if they also used proper punctuation and ran the spell-checker before publishing anything.
And beyond that, imagine if we all turned off auto-correct and most of the things we wrote were really what we meant to say and not what the computer likes?
Okay, let’s not get carried away.
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
and maybe, just maybe, got everyone to understand the major differences between ‘pour’ over and ‘pore’ over, and stop calling every blessed mother “mom”. “mom” of ten, “mom”s day”, “working mom of two”…oh, I have to stop, I can feel my blood pressure stirring…and make people STOP using spell check, which only works for misspelled words, not misused ones…
Oh yes, my favorites: doughnuts are spelled that way. Dunkin’ Donuts is to blame for the rest. And it’s cemetery, not Cemetary. Stephen King single handedly ruined that one…
breathing softly. OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
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Great post Marilyn, you made my day.
Leslie
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It’s so true! omg. I’m not sure who was responsible, Stephen King, perhaps in making short sentences “to make an impact” scare the ever loving crap out of you, but it caught on, that or people got lazy, or weren’t and aren’t taught. Either way, it is annoying. (even if I do use them occasionally myself) to make a point. lol. Sigh. The pendulum always swings too far right or left and change will be the complete opposite of what is presently in vogue. lol
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There’s nothing wrong with adverbs. It’s just a description based on a verb rather than a noun (for which there are adjectives). He never said DON’T USE ADVERBS. He said be careful about OVERusing them.
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Exactly!
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What a responsibility ! I don’t know if I’m up to this.
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I’m pretty sure about half our population literally is NOT up to it. They really don’t know any grammar because they were never taught any.
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One of my kids had a teacher who told her class to write and not worry about spelling or grammar, which they could learn later. I wanted to kill her.
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Ah yes, the lost art of diagramming sentences. Ask any student today if they were taught how to diagram a sentence and they’ll look at you like you’re a crazy person.
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I was a Junior in High School when they discovered that not one single student could diagram a sentence. So for Junior and Senior year, we got remedial grammar. I feel blessed. Most students today NEVER get any grammar studies. It has not done well for the language. They really think LOL is a word.
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LOL!
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We don’ t all have to sound like the Queen, or whoever Americans use for an example but it is certainly hard to communicate ideas if we don’t make an effort to make ourselves understood. English used to be a compulsory subject in schools. I am not sure if it still is here.
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They still teach the subject … but not grammar. The teachers don’t know it so how are the kids going to learn it?
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Ditto spelling. I think that teachers over the past two generations have become less literate because they were taught badly themselves.
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I’m betting most newer generation of teachers could NOT parse a sentence and most could not identify the parts of speech or figure out which tense goes with which sentence.
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Complete sentences? Hmmmmm. Sounds hard. Hurt brain. Ugh. Grunt. TTYL!
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ROFLMAO!
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Okay what does ROFLMAO mean?
Leslie
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Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off.
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I’ll remember that one…thank you
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Brings back memories of school days when one of the tasks in english was to analyze a sentence by splitting it into the subject and predicate, it certainly stayed with me
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It’s a useful thing to know in ANY language. In fact, I think understanding grammar helps you learn other languages.
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I agree.
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Without meaning to be carried away, and it may be regional, but the pronunciation of many words without all the letters or syllables is one of my pet peeves — for example, “Imagine if, for one day, everyone used complete sences! I would like to add that imagn if they also used proper puncshation and ran the spell-checker before pubshing anything.” If those words were properly pronounced, they’d also be properly spelled!
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Well, as the Typo Queen of the East Coast, I have to point out that as I get older, I forget to finish words I’m typing and often type a homonym of the word — like right instead of write — or I leave out the “not” which is (naturally) the critical word of the sentence.
I fear this is going to get worse. It seems to be MY personal version of dementia. That and forgetting a common word. Today’s forgotten word was “funnel.” It went away and came back JUST NOW. So I leave room for people’s growing dementia, lack of sleep, distractions due to children, barking dogs, ringing and dinging telephones … and that the spell checker accepts any valid word, even if it isn’t the right word.
But otherwise, at least I KNOW what a verb is. I know what is supposed to be in the complete sentence even if I personally forget half of it while writing it.
I’m old. I can’t help it.
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But my comment was relevant only to the spoken word — not demented, but more common usage (probably regional to some extent). I can excuse the computer, I guess, and the skipping of words, etc. But spoken words are often reflected in written words, and can garble everything! I am finding that my fingers often go faster than the keyboard, leaving out letters when I don’t mean to do that — oops!
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chuckling some more….
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chuckle….
Leslie
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