Most people who know me know I am one of those people that gets annoyed at what I perceive to be the decay of the English language. I'm the one who's constantly looking at signs and sighing about their misuse of the word "its" or how they pluralize something ("apple's" instead of "apples"). That said, I'm not one who expects everyone to know the arcana of grammar. If I see a split infinitive, it doesn't bother me. Heck, I tend to split infinitives.

Do you know why we aren't supposed to split infinitives?? English is just about the only language you can split an infinitive, simply because our infinitives are two words (ie, "to go," "to stop," etc). In most other languages they're one word (in Spanish, "ir" is "to go", "parar" is "to stop"). When people wanted to standardize English, the scholars decided that Latin was the language closest to perfection, and so all of our grammar rules in English derive from Latin. You can't split an infinitive in Latin because it's one word; therefore, it is wrong to split an infinitive in English.

Now THAT'S a dumb rule.

Anyhow. I realize that in online situations, people engage in "netspeak" and other shortened forms of the language. That I don't mind because it's a casual, informal situation, and also I realize that most people don't type 80+ words a minute. But I would shudder visibly if ever I saw someone submitting a resume littered with netspeak.

There is a time and a place for everything.

Last night I experienced extremely bad grammar in the most unlikely of places -- during a special on the Discovery Channel about a new tomb scientists have found in Egypt. You wouldn't expect bad grammar in a scholarly special on the Discovery Channel, would you?? You'd expect the voice-over script to be edited, wouldn't you??

The voice-over guy kept using the word "team" (as in "the team of Egyptologists") as a plural.

"Team" is singular, folks!! Sure, it refers to a group of people, but you use the singular form of verbs with the word "team"!!!

The guy kept saying, "The team are excited by this discovery!" or "The team go down into the tomb again."

Arrggghhh.

I wanted to throw my iced tea at the tv... but I refrained since drowning a tv is never a good idea -- right, Caroline?? ;o)

What I did like about the program was it had this female Egyptologist from Cairo who is just a really interesting person to listen to. I would sit and listen to any lecture by her any time simply because she presents her information in such an engaging manner. When this tomb was found, it contained seven coffins and many jars that were sealed, and it was this female Egyptologist's job to open the jars as they were brought to an adjacent tomb they were using as a lab. She was getting so very excited about everything she found. It was just really neat to see someone passionate about their work, and finally finding something new in their field!! It's been 80 years since a new tomb was found in Egypt, so this was pretty exciting stuff.

I almost wish I'd been there!! It's not every day you open a jar that's never been opened since it was sealed 3,000 years ago!

In sadder news, poor Art had to say goodbye to his wonderful companion and kitty Creamsicle yesterday. Creamy will definitely be missed. *BIG HUGS*