I’m not much of a normal collector. I don’t have a hundred
salt and pepper shaker sets. Or ceramic figurines. Or stuffed animals.
But I do like words and grammar. I have several thesauri,
multiple dictionaries (even two that are identical—that particular dictionary
is my favorite, so I have to have a backup), and I have scads of grammar books,
everything from the Chicago Manual of
Style to Grammar Snobs are Great Big
Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite.
And I read them for fun. (Okay, I see you out there—you read
them for fun too. Raise your hands. Now we’ll all sing “Kumba Ya.” Just
kidding.) I also read phone books for fun. But that’s another story.
Anyway, Grammar Snobs
is a sort of layman’s guide book to zingers for dealing with grammar snobs. Okay,
I’ll admit to being a grammar snob. But only in dealing with my kids when they
were little. “May asks for permission.
Can refers to native ability. Say ‘May
I have a candy bar.’” (Though my kids will probably mutter that neither usage
got them a candy bar.)
In any case, I found a delightful tidbit in Grammar Snobs.
One that almost everyone gets wrong. Are you ready? What is the shortened form
of the word until? Think.
Are you one hundred percent sure? Okay. The shortened form
of the word until is till. Yeah, I know. No one uses it
correctly. Go look it up in your dictionary. I did and was shocked. I thought it was ’til.
I know the rule that says when you abbreviate something (anything), you use an
apostrophe to mark the spot where the letters have been removed. I thought it
was a carved-in-stone-never-to-be-altered rule. But there’s an exception.
What makes it even weirder is that the abbreviation for until is the
same as the word that means “to plow the soil.”
So now you have it. A new party game. Stump your grammar snob
friends.
BTW, I’m now off to do a global search of my novel for the
errant ’til. Just in case.
And here's a link to the book on Amazon if you can't wait to get your hands on another grammar book.
