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Some Things That are Driving Me Crazy

February 6th, 2011

Disclaimer: None of the opinions I express here are reflective of the opinions of my owner, friends, co/guest bloggers, employers, coworkers, affiliates, or advertisers. (I think that covers everybody.) They are mine, and mine alone.

Thing 1 – Possessive Nouns

I try not to be a grammar Nazi. Heaven knows my grammar isn’t perfect. I suck at commas. I still mix up “affect” and “effect”. I only just learned when to use “past” and “passed”. But the amount of people who have no idea how to correctly write possessive nouns drives me absolutely insane. INSANE!

Let me start by pointing you to a website every writer should at least have bookmarked. It’s called Daily Writing Tips, and if they haven’t covered it already, write them, and they will.

So here’s the skinny on possessive nouns:

Possessive Singular Nouns:

To denote ownership of any singular noun, you add an apostrophe, and an “S”. Even singular nouns that end in “S”. So singular nouns should look like this:

Jennifer’s bike is royal blue.

Tantus’s Goliath is a really kick ass dildo.

Because Tantus is singular, you add an apostrophe, and an “S”.

Possessive Plural Nouns:

These are a little trickier. Plural nouns that end in “S” just get an apostrophe, while plural nouns ending in any other letter get an apostrophe, and an “S”, just like singular nouns. So they look like this:

The balls’ stripes are red and yellow.

Oddly enough, the men’s bathroom is usually cleaner than the women’s bathroom.

Now that that’s out of the way…

Thing 2 – What difference does it make?

You’ll see this question asked most often when people inquire aloud about the gender, sexuality, politics or religion of the people around them. But occasionally, you’ll hear it in response to much less controversial questions like age, favorite book, age they lost their virginity… Even a “just curious” tacked onto the end of the question isn’t enough to curb the barrage of snarky “What difference does it make?” type responses that immediately follow.

It’s great you’re so politically correct you’re honestly completely disinterested in these things. It really is. It’s a step in the right direction, for sure.

But here’s the thing. Sometimes… And I know this is gonna be hard to believe… But sometimes, people really just want to know. They don’t care either. They’re just curious. There’s nothing wrong with being curious. Curiosity is why the human race has come as far as it has.

Thing 3 – Sensationalism

Of any sort. In the media, in the blogger/reviewerosphere, around the neighborhood… It doesn’t do anyone any good. It makes great big mountains out of barely-there molehills, and causes all sorts of hysteria that is completely unnecessary.

So you got a dud toy. Big screaming deal. It happens. There’s not a single industry in the world that doesn’t occasionally create duds. Hell, nature occasionally creates duds. It’s just the way things are.

Someone didn’t get back to you? Email them again. There’s a lot of us product reviewers, and even more customers, and many of the people in charge of companies’ reviewing programs are in charge of much more than just the reviewing program. Naturally, someone’s going to occasionally fall through the cracks. It’s a sign of the times, not how the company as a whole feels about you. Or even how the employees feel about you on a personal level.

Think about back when the internet wasn’t one of the main ways we communicate with people, these days. Would you have stood in the middle of your office screaming about how much your employer sucks because for the first time ever they accidentally didn’t pay you for one hour of overtime? If you would, you should probably get that checked. But likewise, you shouldn’t run to the internet to blast a company you work for or with, or a girl you just met, or your best friend from high school, or the man just yesterday you said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with to the entire world. Talk to them first. Find out what’s really going on. I’m betting you’ll be surprised at the outcome.

That’s it for now.

<3

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  1. February 6th, 2011 at 22:51 | #1

    I think I love you even more.

    At first I read your ‘what difference does it make?’ like you were fixing to lay the smack down on why it’s important to be grammatically correct about possessive nouns. I was thinking ‘Man, she is serious about this shit!’

    Then I kept reading and I agreed. Again. I’m kind of tired of seeing people trying so hard to be politically correct, like no one can ask questions about stuff. Then, those same people that are all ‘Uh, it doesn’t matter. Just love everybody and recycle.’ are all ‘Check your privilege! Everybody knows white grapes are green. Stop asking stupid questions about what gender the grapes are.’

    Then I kept reading some more and I was like ‘I agree. Again.’ because so many people are all twitter-pissed about shit, like shipping departments aren’t run by humans who might mix up a shipping label or computer errors don’t happen. I kinda got hurt feelings because a company didn’t respond to me and thought my blog must suck or something. Then they emailed me like ‘um, we sent you this one thing a while back (like 10 months ago) and were wondering how your review was coming along.’ and I was like ‘I sent you a link to that 8 months ago.’ It turns out, my review was great and the spam filter ate my email.

    I’ll stop writing you a novel now.

  2. February 7th, 2011 at 01:45 | #2

    I like to think my bad grammar is part of my charm.
    Kinda gives the reader a foot up and changes the imaginary voice in their heads while they read my babble.

  3. February 7th, 2011 at 16:15 | #3

    @ Inferno Lol. You’re probably right.

  4. February 7th, 2011 at 20:18 | #4

    @ Sarahbear Lol. I actually had a semi-sarcastic joking paragraph lead in to that section half started, and then realized to people who don’t know me it would sound like all sarcasm and no joking, so I nixed it.

    This: Then, those same people that are all ‘Uh, it doesn’t matter. Just love everybody and recycle.’ are all ‘Check your privilege! Everybody knows white grapes are green. Stop asking stupid questions about what gender the grapes are.’

    And this: twitter-pissed

    I’m still laughing. But yeah. Shit happens. It’s rarely ever intentional.

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