I’m studying and Sam is sick.
Howdy ho.
Well the long weekend is over and done with and I am sure you are all back to working like busy little bees. (Actually I am just reading this over and I realised its Friday- so have a good weekend people!)
I am recovered from my flu like symptoms, though Sam appears to have succumbed to something different to what I had.
I have been studying hard and nearly finished! Every time I look at the study material I realise how unqualified I am to teach English. I am knee deep in model verbs, noun clauses and trying to explain question/statement word order. blahhh.
I have come to the conclusion that English is a silly, silly language indeed, and very inconsistent. I am thinking of learning Vietnamese and never speaking a word of English to anyone. Ever again. Mind you Vietnamese has that tonal behaviour which is as far as I can tell impossible to hear, let alone actually speak it. Ahh maybe I’ll stick to English, and just fake it with the students.
I am also reading this book on punctuation, ( Rose really? No wonder you got sick, partying too hard obviously) relax, it’s to help with the teaching thing, though quite good, it is written by this woman with way too much affection for apostrophes. The book has some interesting things in it and I realised that I know how to use; a full stop, comma, semi colon, question mark, exclamation mark and quotation marks: but not colons. I don’t know what my education had against them, but they were completely left out. So there one is above, I am freeing myself from a life with out colons, expect more.
lOVe to youse all!!!!!
Rose
I think that should have been a colon after use, rather than a semi colon, and where you have a colon I think that should be a comma. Well this is how this aged virgoan would have written it:
The book has some interesting things in it and I realise that the punctuation I know how to use includes: a full stop, comma, semi colon, question mark, exclamation mark and quotation marks, but not colons.
Apostrophes are the most popularly abused form of punctuation, ie: 90’s should be ’90s and CD’s should be CDs; ads are full of them, and butchers’ windows seem to specialise in their incorrect usage.
But let’s not get too pedantic, after all it’s just a lot of gooks you are teaching. Sorry, the politically incorrect reference is a segue into a suggestion that Sam, in his weakened state, may enjoy Clint Eastwood’s latest classic, Gran Torino, that I saw last night. You gotta see it to understand.
I am sure you will both make fabulous teachers because you are such people persons; the English language is constantly changing as living languages do, and I am sure your students will thrive under your tutelage.
Just make sure they know there’s no such thing as a possessive “it” and when it appears there is, as in “it’s alright”, the apostrophe is actually indicating that we dropped the i in is. haha!!
Get better Sam; I am looking forward with trepidation to the results of the helmetcam. Nice to read your all-too-rare contributions too, Rose. xxx
Errr. I’ve known how to use colons and semi colons for years.
The 3 current known uses are;
a) Chrisn’t Bauer jokes about his fauly colon.
b) :)
c) ;)
Here endith the lesson, and you can take that to your stinking students too!
Hey Sam, I hope it isn’t your colon that is sick!
Kim…. remember the TEA’S signage at Cowaramup? lol.
Get better Sam… study hard.
Love Mamma.
Rose dearest it is wonderful that you are taking punctuation more seriously. I’ve always felt badly that you were away from school the day they taught spelling and certainly had another day off when punctutaion was covered. Now you are a purposeful inner directed learner and : : ‘ ” ! – ? . , are falling nicely into line before you.
I love reading whatever you write – creative letter order and all. – so don’t get self conscious about it. I take responsibility for sending you to a Steiner school where learning to say “can I go to the toilet?” in Gaelic was promoted above colons, commas and spelling!
You and Sam will be terrific teachers – your students will adore you – and they will believe whatever spelling and punctuation you place before them.
I am totally into dashes at the moment and have always loved exclaimation marks and I’m not bothered what the correct use of them actually is!!!!!!!! love Marsbar xxxxxxxxx
haha love the mia culpa marsbar!
sam went to a state school and always knew more than his parents when it came to english, maths and whatever they used to call what we called history and geography ;-)
but god he has come a long way to stay tied alongside your lovely daughter…
kx
Hi papa I actually don’t take the mia culpa bit too seriously because Rose did “take against” uniform spelling and correct punctuation in a deliberate fashion at an early age.- she can be a bit like that. She changed to the state system at year 6 and used to read non stop and never noticed the spelling apparently! The two of them are wonderfully well suited I think. I love being on the edge of their travelling adventures. ax