Monday, October 15, 2012

Releasing a Little Grammar Geek Frustration


This grates on me, and I am not trying to be unkind, but this is not the first time I’ve seen this mistake written or typed out since moving here to Kentucky, and here it occurs twice in one paragraph. Makes me wonder if the dialect here has prevented someone from realizing it is a mistake. However, it’s one thing to speak with an accent, but it is another to not be able to spell this word correctly on paper. To be clear, I am not knocking dialects and regional accents. I find different accents to be interesting and life would be boring if we all sounded exactly alike. BUT we don’t WRITE in dialect when it’s a paper that reflects on an organization professionally. A Harvard graduate would write it as 'Harvard,' even though he might say it as, "Hahvad."  Do you see it? Other parts of the country tend to look down on us in this part of the country as being kind of backward, so let’s not give them any ammunition, okay? I constantly have to correct my daughter when she is saying this word, because what she wants to be saying and what she’s actually saying do not mean the same thing. They are different words. And it drives the grammar geek in me up the wall.
According to Dictionary.com:

Drawl: to say or speak in a slow manner, usually prolonging the vowels. (And yes, in KY many of us do speak this way. :-)Therefore ‘drawling’ would be a progressive form of ‘drawl,’ and would have to do with a certain manner of speaking, yes?)

And for ‘Drawing,’ definition #5 will suffice: something decided by drawing lots; lottery.

DRAWL does not equal DRAW, and DRAWLING does not equal DRAWING. 

(And yes, 'return' is spelled wrong, too.)

Thank you. Carry on.


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