National Grammar Day – March 4th

photo credit: Simon Shek

I will fully admit that I pride in my proper use of grammar. I have written a whopping total of 2,242 blog entries on this blog (not counting all my academic and non-academic, freelance writing as well as my research blogging). I do the majority of my writing in a language that isn’t the one I learned first. However, my degree of fluency is considered (in the lingo of those who know) as near-native. I think, joke and write in English.

Since I started teaching at the university level here in Canada, I have always included the following sentence in my syllabus – “I am a strickler for grammar“. It’s true. I hate bad grammar. It makes my eyes bleed (well, not literally, but figuratively). I pride in maintaining high grammatical standards and will swiftly deduct marks from any student paper due to poor grammar.

Today, I learned that March 4th is National Grammar Day, so I just wanted to celebrate it. I know that sometimes, on this blog, I write in American English and I say “favor” instead of “favour”. Please, my dear Canadian and British readership – forgive me, for I have sinned.

EDIT – I did type “strickler” instead of “stickler”, on purpose – answering Jen’s question! I was wondering who would notice!