Anyways

I am a grammar freak. I blame my folks and grandmother. Grammar was a vital part of our formative years, as was vocabulary. Generally I heard the words "Why don't you look it up in the dictionary. It's spelled ----." at least once a week, sometimes more. My parents and grandparents (as well as the assortment of adults who frequented our home including my aunt) made it a point to not use a lot of small words when one big one would do. Not that they were going for ostentatious vocabulary points, it's just that these words were a part of their everyday language and they saw no need to change that just so the children would understand them more readily. As a result (not surprisingly, perhaps) my siblings and I have rather extensive vocabularies. In addition to this, they made absolutely certain that we never got away with asking the question "where is she at?" or other such grotesque grammatical and vocabulary errors.

Growing up I took it as par for the course, now that I'm an adult I understand that it most certainly is not normal. However, I am also immensely grateful!

The other side of this is that incorrect grammar really, really, really bothers me. Usually I try to not correct people outside of immediate family, but sometimes it just happens.

GoteeBoy, apparently, did not have the same fortune as I growing up, and as an adult still commits some basic (albeit hyper grating) mistakes. For example, he believes that it is pronounced "suposebly." He is also in favor of "these ones" and "anyways". In the interest of not being a jerk I keep my trap shut. However, at lunch yesterday a bunch of us were discussing words that drive me nuts. I don't remember how we got on the topic, but I'm sure I brought it up. We all had a good laugh at my neurosis. Thankfully, we deviated to generally misused words/phrases that bother other people — including "irregardless" and "I could care less".

In light of this, when I got an email from MyBoss that (due to his grammar) I did not fully understand I sent him an email for clarification. The exchange went thusly (slightly modified to continue to protect my anonymity, and for clarification for the reader):

Him: Did anyone see any strange (product name) problems yesterday?

Me: Define "strange (product name) problems". Are you asking if (product name) was acting up or if we saw some problems that we entered into (product name) that were strange? Seriously, I'm not just being a dork here, I'm confused as to the question.
-Granola

Him:Did you have any problems using it, login in etc.
btw. I think you are a dork irregardless anyways
myboss

Me:In that case, no.
P.S. I think you're a dork, too.

Him: lol. I'm glad we've got a mutual understanding.

Ahh, the maturity level we operate on here at BigNameCompany is amazing.

More on how I made a huge CLM (career limiting move) tomorrow.