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Language is constantly evolving. I suppose that's a good thing, but I don't know if I will ever get used to the slovenliness of "ur" for "your" or "you're".
But there are rules about punctuation, and I'm up my own backside about them. I'm not a member of that "correct use of the apostrophe" society yet, but that's only because I haven't bothered to join (I might have to pay - outrageous!). I've had a couple of playful jibes at huxley because he does stream of consciousness posts that leave my eyes tired, and good feller that he is, he's taken them in the spirit they were sent (though in my head I imagine that, in real life, he looks like that caffeine-crazed guy in his avatar).
I'm rambling - and after only one bottle of beer. Permit me to ramble more.
One of the reasons I believe punctuation to be important is that I nearly got divorced over it. This was a few years ago, when texting was new and mobile phones were the size of bricks. I was at work, minding my own business, when I got a text off my wife. We hadn't been married that many years. It said this: "Wish I could see you later love you xx"
It stopped me in my tracks. As far as I was aware, she was seeing me later. We lived in the same house, and neither of us had any plans to be out that evening. So... who was this person she wished she could see later? And why, if she was my wife of only a few years, did she love that person? I spent the afternoon wrestling with it. Who was this person she thought she'd sent a text message to, and how could our marriage have gone so wrong after so little time? Why had there been no other warning signs?
It was only as I drove home, expecting a nasty confrontation, that realisation dawned. You see, mobile phones - as I've already said - were new and bulky, and my wife didn't always carry hers with her or have it switched on (man alive the batteries ran down fast in those days, eh?). A couple of days earlier I'd taken a day off work for a reason that escapes me. I remember it was a fine autumn day, and I was walking along a path that was covered in brown and golden leaves that had fallen from the trees around me. I was kicking my way through them, and I decided to send my wife - who was at work - a text message. My text message said this: "Come kick leaves with me!"
Two days later she turned her phone on, got that message, and sent me a reply. With the correct punctuation, it would have looked like this: "Wish I could, see you later, love you xx"
Well... that's her story, and she's sticking to it.
But there are rules about punctuation, and I'm up my own backside about them. I'm not a member of that "correct use of the apostrophe" society yet, but that's only because I haven't bothered to join (I might have to pay - outrageous!). I've had a couple of playful jibes at huxley because he does stream of consciousness posts that leave my eyes tired, and good feller that he is, he's taken them in the spirit they were sent (though in my head I imagine that, in real life, he looks like that caffeine-crazed guy in his avatar).
I'm rambling - and after only one bottle of beer. Permit me to ramble more.
One of the reasons I believe punctuation to be important is that I nearly got divorced over it. This was a few years ago, when texting was new and mobile phones were the size of bricks. I was at work, minding my own business, when I got a text off my wife. We hadn't been married that many years. It said this: "Wish I could see you later love you xx"
It stopped me in my tracks. As far as I was aware, she was seeing me later. We lived in the same house, and neither of us had any plans to be out that evening. So... who was this person she wished she could see later? And why, if she was my wife of only a few years, did she love that person? I spent the afternoon wrestling with it. Who was this person she thought she'd sent a text message to, and how could our marriage have gone so wrong after so little time? Why had there been no other warning signs?
It was only as I drove home, expecting a nasty confrontation, that realisation dawned. You see, mobile phones - as I've already said - were new and bulky, and my wife didn't always carry hers with her or have it switched on (man alive the batteries ran down fast in those days, eh?). A couple of days earlier I'd taken a day off work for a reason that escapes me. I remember it was a fine autumn day, and I was walking along a path that was covered in brown and golden leaves that had fallen from the trees around me. I was kicking my way through them, and I decided to send my wife - who was at work - a text message. My text message said this: "Come kick leaves with me!"
Two days later she turned her phone on, got that message, and sent me a reply. With the correct punctuation, it would have looked like this: "Wish I could, see you later, love you xx"
Well... that's her story, and she's sticking to it.
