opera142

I had a grammar class today. Too short, and a little frustrating because of that. I think when the instructor planned the class, she thought we'd be unwilling, disinterested pupils. So she planned a very short, breezy review.

But as adults, as writers, as people there because of our desire, we were like, MORE PLEASE. It's obvious she didn't plan on getting asked as many questions as she did--- we only got through the first 2 sections of the packet she made: the parts of speech (and diagraming sentences) and phrases/clauses. And neither were covered to the depth the class wanted. I have trouble making phrases/clause flow and keeping my sentences free of CLUNK so I wanted MORE PLEASE. At least I got some vocabulary to make investigating them on my own easier.

I didn't have to sit next to the flighty chick today! For some reason, flighty folks love sitting next to me in writing classes. The flighty chick was already there; I choose a different table. Today's flight chick was talker. Endless yammer about her dog. She kept on and on about her dog "burying a bone in her bed", and I was dying inside. Lady, you can't talk like that around me. My brain roons innocence. Roons.

I noticed an odd reaction to bad grammar from my classmates. When we were practising finding oopsies in incorrect sentences, there were a few women in class who were going out of their way to "forgive" the oopsie, either excusing it as "that's how someone might say it" or doing serious meta-gymnastics to find situations where that particular construction would be okay.

And, of course, I discovered an odd habit of mine. While we were discussing/repairing dangling modifiers, my "repair" generally involved removing the phrase altogether and working its key idea into a noun. For the sentence: Toddling clumsily, the cars whizzed past the small child playing in the road. Most people corrected it as, The cars whizzed past the small child toddling clumsily as she played in the road. I generally wrote: The cars whizzed past the toddler playing in the road. It was interesting seeing my writing habits as a habit, if that makes any sense.

( And that, of course, inspired a writing ramble )