Many More Funners.

Hoo-eee. You guys.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. Fortunate, really. I have a day job that allows me to live wherever, and provided that I have a functional computer and some decent Wi-Fi, I can garner some freelance or paychecks every now and then. I know I’ve mentioned this in past posts, but so you don’t have to scroll back, I’m a writer. Content marketing, mainly. That involves some editing work (which always makes me feel bad when I make typos here), and generally helping people construct a narrative through which to sell their products or services.

Lately, it’s actually been pretty fun. One of my clients specializes in branding for minority-owned businesses; another is a cannabis-related upstart that really wants to think out-of-the-box with their marketing strategies; and completely odd, but I’ve actually gotten really, really, really good at writing real estate listings.

Every once in a while, there’s a straggler client. Somebody who hired somebody else, found themselves buried deep in a hole of some really shitty copy, and now, with a deadline looming, needs somebody to fix it. I’ve actually gotten pretty decent at taking poop and turning it into chocolate mousse (but I STILL suck at analogies, because eww).

As the great Liam Neesons says, “I have a very particular set of skills.”

I’m proud of the work that I do. My clients are almost always happy with the results, and it’s good to do something that you’re proud of. I’m certainly not “rolling in it…” At the end of the day, I am just a writer. I get a little bit of a cringe in my shoulders whenever I see an ad for Grammarly at the beginning of a YouTube video. It’s functional, and that’s great: writing can be hard for a lot of people, and everyone deserves the tools necessary to express themselves in the way they want to. But I can see the writing on the wall (so to speak, har har har…). By the time 30 more years goes by, artificial intelligence will have sucked up my job too. But by then, I’ll just be a crazy old cat lady living in a dilapidated cabin out in the woods somewhere, the kind that the kids in town share creepy stories about (total Spielberg trope).

Anyway, a lot of work over the last couple of weeks has fallen into the category of “I’ll fix it, I won’t get paid a lot, but a few bucks is better than no bucks, and even though I live a simple life, I still have a couple of bills to pay…” Crosseyed, but I'll live.

(I have a storage room back in the States. It’s not huge, only a 5 x 5. When I rented it, the neighborhood was pretty nondescript. But goddamnit, the neighborhood has gotten trendy! My storage unit bill has quadrupled in the last couple of years... [this has nothing to do with anything, but it is a little frustrating, especially because there’s really only one cardboard box worth of stuff in that entire room that I actually care about. Oh well.])

Where was I… Oh yes! In doing all of this fix-it work, I encountered a few of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to the odd nuances of the English language. You might already know these little tricks, but they are common ones, and they’re kind of fun to keep in  mind. I’m not sure if you have any interest in hearing them, but I will lay them out anyway. If anything, it would please that one professor from college who really drilled this shit into my mind. Without any further ado, my personal Top 10, in no particular order…

1. Who or Whom? We always get confused by this one, but there’s one trick that works about 99% of the time. Pull out your old sentence diagramming skills, and restructure the sentence until you end up with a pronoun instead of who/whom. If it’s he, she, or they, use who (referring to the subject) If it’s him, her, or them, use whom (referring to the object of a preposition or verb). “Who sold me this primo schwag?” “He sold me this primo schwag.” “Whom should I speak to about purchasing more primo schwag?” “I should speak to him about purchasing more primo schwag.” Works almost every time.

2. Compose versus Comprise. This one always bugs me. Easiest thing in the world, though. “Comprised of” literally does not exist. It’s always wrong. Remove it from your vocabulary. It’s either comprise by itself, in whatever tense the sentence requires, or composed of. “The bag of primo schwag is composed of 28 grams; 28 grams comprise the bag of primo schwag.” I know, there is some disagreement on this one… I’m just a snob for this structure, because it’s never technically wrong.

3. A Myriad Of. Nope! I know, language is always evolving, and it’s organic, and nobody’s gonna send you to jail if you say “a myriad of primo swag.” It’s just that the definition of myriad is “an abundance and/or variety of,” so you’d pretty much be saying “a a bunch of of primo swag.” Sort of like saying “The Los Angeles Angels,” which is a silly name for a team, because you’re just saying “The The Angels Angels.” So, just "Myriad primo schwag."

4. The Oxford Comma. Just do it. Again, if you always use the Oxford comma, you’re never gonna be wrong. “Red, white, and blue,” or “Celery, squash, and schwag?” Never gonna get confusing without that second comma. But “The strippers, Kennedy, and Stalin?” Remove the second comma and see what mental image you’re left with.

5. Forte. Like “strength,” or “buying primo schwag is my forte.” It’s derived from the French, and should be pronounced “fort.” But people always say “fawr-tay,” which is an Italian musical term that means “loud.” Still, I always intentionally mispronounce it, because people always correct me, even though I’m right, dammit.

6. No matter what anybody tells you, it’s perfectly acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition. “Where am I going to buy this primo schwag from?” That’s cool. If they have any complaints, tell them Heather said it was OK.

7. Literally. Did you know, a few years back, we redefined literally, because it was used so often to mean figuratively? Which means that we literally don’t have a word that means literally anymore. I can tell you that “I’m literally going to kill you for a bag of primo schwag,” and you literally have no idea if I’m serious or not. There’s no lesson in that, it just bugs me.

8. Lay vs. Lie. Lay means that you’re putting something (the direct object) down. Lie means you’re assuming a horizontal position. Lain is the past of lie; Laid is the past of lay. English is stupid.

9. Overuse adjectives. Just do it. It makes a dull, underwhelming, drab, boring life way more fun.

10. Tiddies is the correct spelling. Solely because it’s many more funners to say.