Idiosyncrasies..........

I read a blog this week that made me go..............hmmmmmm?
The writer was bemoaning his inadequacies with the English
language and the using of proper grammar and spelling.

It made me think about all my English teachers. I always said
that English was my least favorite subject and how weak I felt
in that area. I never had an English teacher that really inspired
me until college. In fairness, I really liked my teachers, but most
of them had been teaching 30+ years, had problems, or were just
not that interested any longer. One year we spent the whole year
learning and reciting and writing on " I think that I shall never
see a poem lovely as a tree." Needless to say, this didn't do a
lot to prepare me for entering high school English the next year.

Then, in my 40's, I went back to college. I was given this speech
about how my skills had deteriorated and that I would probably
have to take "refresher" courses. They had me scared to death
and I had to take the ACT the next day (since it had been over
20 years they wouldn't accept my prior ACT score). I stayed
up all night and was so afraid I would be led out to a firing squad
and refused entrance. The moral of this story is......never be
afraid. They called me the next day and I had set some type of
record. I scored perfect on 2 sections of the ACT (with English
being one of those sections) and missed very few overall. I was
elated simply because of how scared they had made me the day
before! I honestly believe that the simple acts of working for
over 20 years, voracious reading of newspapers and books, and
just living life improved my English skills. Having said that, I
am FAR from perfect and unfortunately write like I talk. I never
know when to shut up! My sentences are too long and sometimes
confusing. Thankfully, I don't do this for a living!

However, it was brought to my attention during my employment
that I had a "gift" for proofreading or catching errors. We might
have a 500 page spread sheet and I could always find the wrong
number. When I read a newspaper and see misspelled words,
it drives me NUTS! I can still recall reading a story about a
disturbance with taking a dog in a local restaurant and the writer
used the word "quiet" instead of "quite" or a headline having
the word "Circiut" instead of circuit. I understand completely
that it would be impossible to publish a newspaper without
mistakes. We all make mistakes everyday. That's just one of my
idiosyncrasies or what we refer to as our OCD problems. We all
have them. I have friends that e-mail me every week and we
compare what errors we found that week in the papers. It's just
our little "thing."

I had reason to think about all that this week. A relative visited
and was talking about a mutual acquaintance. Seems this person
and her mother have a real problem about judging people. They
talk about how someone looks, what they drive, where they live,
how clean they keep their house, how much they make - you get
the picture. I was told how much it meant to my kids that they
never heard anything like that growing up. An example was
given about two of the nicest people in this town and how these
two women were making fun of these two people and the "rolls"
on their necks and their weight. It seemed so odd and just
unbelievable to me. These two people that they were talking
about were actually taking valuable time from their weekend
(they both work) to mow their church's lawn and grounds. To
be completely frank.....these two women should be the last two
people on earth to be talking about anyone else. You know the
saying about skeletons in closets......well, they would need a very
LARGE walk-in.

I decided that my little idiosyncrasy of noticing misspelled words
was pretty harmless.

I had intended on writing something about how we cope with
what life throws us. So, I'll leave you with this thought.

Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The
way you cope with it, is what makes the difference!

Be kind to one another and appreciate your little idiosyncrasies.