monday, monday... can't trust that day.

an internet newsybloggy article offering 21 suggestions for ways retirees can earn extra money listed "Errands. Retirees who are handy around the house will never be without extra cash. Other easy errands you could provide include grocery shopping, rides to the airport, and picking up dry cleaning."

huh.

well, clearly, a possible money-making endeavor for retirees is not copyediting since retirees who know that being handy around the house means they can help with CHORES, not ERRANDS, would not be able to make any money at all because vocabulary is a losed art.

grammar, grammar, grammar. that pesky set of rules we all learned in jr high school. well, most of us learned. okay, okay - SOME of us learned maybe half of the rules. at any rate - grammar. we cannot communicate without it.

the irony of grammar is that folks who know the least about it rely on it the most. people who don't know how to correctly place a comma rely on the correct placement of commas to be able to follow a newspaper story. those who confuse, misuse, and abuse there & there or you're & your would be hard pressed to determine the meaning of a sentence where they're incorrectly set forth.

not all grammar rules are sensible. for prigzample, according to the chicago manual of style, there's a rule that states that punctuation following an italicized word should take on the characteristics of the word and be italicized. this is just simply wack. the punctuation is not part of the word. punctuation serves as a divider between words, between sentences, phrases, thoughts. punctuation should not be sullied by the whimsicle format of lesser entities such as the mere surrounding letters.

there is another CMS rule that states that periods, commas, and all should be placed inside adjacent close-quotes. the simple fact that "" happen to be in the area is absolutely no reason to allow them to suck in all the surrounding punctuation like a giant vacuum. correctly punctuated according to the authorities: To get to the next page, just press the little button marked "Enter." correctly punctuated according to ace: To get to the next page, just press the little button marked "Enter". if you cannot see how this makes more sense, you are a loon.

an interesting tid-bit: the brits practice both these rules in the opposite (i.e., ace-approved) direction.

oh, and for those of you who take issue with my discussion of grammar in my blog where i capitalize at my whim and spell at my invention... go ahead and submit a comment here because i really, really, really care what you "think".

heh.