Parts of Speech

First of all, I didn't win the lottery.

Second of all, I'm still sick, and it's making me feel very tired. I took some decongestants. With any luck, it will keep me from getting infections in my ears and sinuses. Cross your fingers! I might make some green tea in a minute.

Third of all (That sounds weird. Is that common usage?), Brother has changed his plans, and I will only be seeing him on Saturday. As of yesterday evening, I was expecting him for Friday and Saturday, but he's staying in Rolla in order to see some other friends of ours who couldn't make it on Wednesday, like we had thought. The upside is that I can offload half of my today list onto tomorrow. Possibly, I will still need to go to Wal-Mart. We shall see.

And now, the gripe of the day. You know you were waiting for it! PBS Kids says, "The more you learn and know, the smarter you'll grow!" They are a self proclaimed educational program. Well, group of programs. Between the children's shows, there is an announcer/hostess who introduces the show and does some educational interludes. HOWEVER. Today the lady was showing how you can make your voice sound different, by, "TALKING LOUD! ...Or quiet. I can speak reallyreallyreallyfast!! Or....REAL.....SLOW."

Did you catch it? Did you? Did you, did you?

Educational. You would think that they would blush to expose the children of the nation to yet more incorrect English. Josh says that they are doing fine. They aren't speaking Ebonics, and nobody knows correct English anyway. Well, THIS is why!

For those of you who go under Josh's blanket generalization of "nobody knows", I will now tell you that verbs such as "talking" are to be modified by adverbs, such as "slowly" or "quickly" or "loudly" or "quietly". Adverbs are to be modified by other adverbs, such as"really". I won't even go into the fact that this would be a poor usage of "really".

According to my mother, the English language (she uses fancy words like descriptive and proscriptive) is changed to whatever the "educated" people do. Every few years, the Oxford dictionary dumbs down our language a little more, based on the ignorance of the country. Did you know that it is now considered CORRECT to split an infinitive? Sure, I do it, but it's not like I thought I was being correct. I would never consider it for a formal setting.

YIKES!

Why is it that our scholars are required to know less and less. If English is so important (they all say it is, you know), than why is no one required to KNOW IT?

Well, you get the idea. I'm sick of people being taught, but not being expected to know.

It's a rainy Thursday. I'm off to bathe my son. Hope your day is treating you well. We're not so bad here. We even know how to use an adverb. So there.