The English Language

Between cleaning and working and doing nothing, I noticed something. Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess I have to reveal a terrifying secret before I go on. Well, it's neither terrifying nor really a secret. Not to those people who actually know me. I talk to myself when I'm alone. Sometimes I do it out loud, sometimes it's only in my head, but I talk to myself constantly. I tell jokes (which crack me up, thank you very much), stories, make lists, hold life-threateningly important conversations with the other half of my brain. Last night, I was watching a drama and the girl asked, "By whom?" And the first thing I thought of was, Oh my god, how did she know to say "whom" and not "who"? That's the second terrifying secret, which is pretty terrifying since I hold a BA in English literature: I suck at grammar. Okay, I know nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, gerunds, and I totally rock at prepositional phrases, but there's some thing about grammar that make me hesitate. Whom and who are two that make me cringe. Also affect and effect. Those are just cruel. Past and passed have caused me more than a little stroke. Now, I can get around using these words in my daily life, or, in the case of passed and past, use them without knowing which spelling I'm actually using. So that's kind of wonderful!

But imagine writing a book and being faced with these problematic words.

There have been thousands of times while writing that I pause and think, Am I supposed to use that word here? What about that tense? Is that one even a real word? This is why it takes me so long to edit. Microsoft Word is telling me one thing and my brain is berating me for listening to Microsoft Word. Then I try looking online, and there are some very helpful websites out there, but then there's other that contradict the helpful websites and make things a thousand times more confusing.

The best part of all this is that when I go to work, my job is to explain the English language and grammar to children, some of those children just walking into our country. Sometimes, when we're going over certain words that have a thousand meanings, they'll look at me and ask why English is so difficult. I used to tell them that's it really not, that it's very simple, but now...Now I look back at these kids and say, You know what? I have no idea. But it's difficult because we have one word with all these meanings and then another word that means exactly the same as that word, but we can only use it in certain situations. Then we have words that sound the same, but they mean other things. It's at that time that the kid is either crying or staring at me like I've gone insane. And maybe I have. But let me tell you, sometimes I hate speaking English. Because sometimes I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about, and that's because I don't.

Don't get me wrong: I love words. I love using weird words, as long they make sense in the situation I'm in. I've been known to use flabbergast instead of surprised or conundrum instead of problem. Sometimes I like the way my mouth moves when I use certain words. Other times, I like to see people's face while they try and figure out what exactly that strange word means (oh, yes, I can be one of those snobby people, and it's a wonderful thing in certain parts of Orange County).

I guess this rambling post comes about because I'm getting everything prepared for the sequel of All You Left Behind. I always get a little apprehensive when I start a new story that I plan to share with people, because I'm not the only English major in this world. I'm also not the only person that doesn't know grammar, so I guess there's that silver lining, right? But I feel that I should know these things because I write, because I'd like it to be a steady job one day. But how can I do that if the English language is so freaking hard?

Now that's off my chest. I can fully enjoy my weekend doing nothing, since it's going to be properly cold down here and I have a TARDIS blanket just begging to be used. I have tons of books (thanks Black Friday!) and three Starbucks within a mile radius of my boyfriend's place. I don't have to worry about English! I'm barely going to be speaking for two days!