The Joy of Rambling

Many years ago, when I was living in the frozen tundra of Minnesota, I came across a small newspaper article about a group of guys who gathered regularly to discuss various misuses of the English language. They called themselves Wordos. 

At the time, I thought it an obsessive group of wanna-be scholars with nothing better to do with their time than assemble with clippings from various printed media (there was no internet back then), and rant over the abomination of incorrect grammar. I think I have now become one of them.

I cannot get through my morning Bible devotion these days without my inner critic lighting up in exasperation over some poorly written phrase. It’s so bad that I’ve created my own note on my phone to jot down errors and correct them. After all, it’s not being obnoxious if I’m just sharing it with myself, right?

These devotional writers mean well, but come on people! Where are your proofreaders? Is there no budget for at least a second set of eyes to be laid on this stuff?

As I sat reading my devotion this morning about allowing ourselves to be overly distracted by the various messages that bombard us throughout the day, I became very distracted. The quote that incensed me was: 

“Too much negative media has been known to exacerbate our mental health, which doesn’t serve anyone well in the end.”

I had to stop and put this in my Wordo note with the following comment:

I might be exacerbating my mental illness with too much social media, or I might be compromising my mental health, but it is impossible to exacerbate my mental health. 

As I went back to reading, I just couldn’t let it go. I thought, I’m going to reach out to this particular outlet and see if I can volunteer to proofread their stuff.

I finished the devotion, getting nothing out of it, and looked up the authoring organization. I went to their website and found a contact form and started entering my information. 

And then I stopped. 

Who on earth do I think I am? Wow. I have typed emails and texts and later, when rereading, have found plenty of grammatical errors. I am probably making some right now. 

In my defense, my grandmother was an English teacher and a freak about proper grammar. She passed this disease on to my mother who passed it on to me and my sisters. And it doesn’t help that I attended a writers’ group for some time, whose sole purpose it was to critique the writings of everyone who attended. We got picky about grammar, punctuation, format and phrasing. And if something written didn’t make sense to more than one person, a rewrite was suggested, to which we all contributed. 

And… don’t forget, I suffer from OCD. It is managed with medication, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. I’ve earned a master’s degree in obsessing, which makes me a master obsessor. And as I type this word, obsessor, MS Word is adding a squiggly red line beneath it, telling me there is something wrong with it. So, I stop to Google it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this word.

Professor Google states: An obsessor is a person who is continually preoccupied with a particular activity, person, or thing.The term can also refer to someone who is motivated by a persistent and unwanted idea or impulse, which is often associated with mental illness and anxiety. 

Take THAT Mr. Gates!

So, I’ve just exacerbated my OCD. I’m a very sick person, but at least I know how to write that sentence using correct grammar. 

Time to get a life… 

PS I Googled Wordos. “The Wordos is a writing workshop based in Eugene, Oregon. Its members meet once a week to critique stories and discuss the art, craft, and business of writing.” Wikipedia

Maybe it wasn’t local after all.

Below: Elva Pettigrew, beloved English teacher and grammar nazi.