Thursday, August 21, 2008

But I want to be a genius!!

In yesterday’s post I made reference to The Chinese Water Torture. (Side note to Jana: I don’t know why or how Troy was able to drop water in your eye, but he had it all wrong. My brother taught us that your head was put in such a position that it couldn’t move. Then a small but consistent drop of water would be allowed to land in the exact same spot on your forehead for hours – perhaps you are placed under a leaky faucet? - until, presumably, you go insane. I don’t know if the Chinese have ever used such a torture, but if they have, I must say – horrible though it may be – I would have to choose it over most other tortures).

So, back to what I was saying: Yesterday I referred to The Chinese Water Torture . . . only I called it The Chinese Water “Torcher.” Huh? What is that word? Like a hot hot thing? A torcher? Sigh. Mike fixed it for me – very carefully of course so as to in no way insinuate that I am anything but brilliant. But man, I might be not so bright after all. That makes me mad. It isn’t usually spelling so much, but look at my posts. Have you ever seen such awful haphazard punctuation, etc. in your life? I like to write with . . . ummm . . . animation? Something. Anyway, that is tricky to punctuate and you would have to wake up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on the old “writing like a crazy person talking.” I mean, when do I really legitimately use all of these: -- and these: . . . and when I end something crazy in parenthesis that ends a sentence but doesn’t end the sentence I was writing do I use a period in the parenthesis? What if my sentence ends when the parenthesis do? Can I really just throw commas in anytime I feel like a little pause? I know Kimberly and Gayle are probably shaking their heads in an “It’s hopeless, Nancy.” sort of way (did I punctuate that wrong?) What about that? Ahhh! Because they know the answers and one answer would be to not write like a rambling maniac, I guess. Sigh again. I don’t want to seem stupid. I need a Harbrace Manual. Only, Mike was trying to help me figure out how to punctuate some awful sentence once by looking online at information and as far as we could tell, there were no circumstances when such a sentence ever should exist to punctuate. Anyway, this is the worst. Now you will all begin paying close attention to my mistakes. I need a post editor. Anyone up for the job? That way I can appear brilliant with out having to actually be brilliant! And really, that is good enough for me because I don't really care if I'm a genius so long as people think I am. Appearances are always my utmost priority.

10 comments:

Salty Incisor said...

just cuz you can't spell doesn't mean you aren't a genious...does that make sense? But it does sound pretty hicky from torture = torcher!!!!

BS and the Kids said...

Who needs english brilliance when it comes to punctuation??? It doesn't matter if you know where to put a , or a ) it just matters if you have the creativity, which you definitely have. There are computer programs or "nerds" to fix that other stuff. But I have always wondered what "I was a Zoology major in college -- TAing classes," means, does the TAing classes mean you were getting A's in everything??? You are just trying to prove to us how much of a smarty pants you really are.

Mugsy said...

I yi yi.....If your not brilliant then I am stupider than I was already. Bummmmmmer......what a post......a sad little post.............

Perla said...

what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

i don't know what that means but its all i could think of to say right now.

Nancy said...

Shan -- Swweeeet. Is that like - what is good for the wife is good for the husband? - and if so, how does it relate to my post? Now you have your very own post topic! I'm going to start telling Mike that all the time.

Sar -- Oh yes, my smarty pants TA days. So, back when I was smart, I would occasionally be a "Teacher's Assistant" (TA) -- which meant I would basiclaly hold tutoring sessions a few times a week for their lower level classes and get paid to do it. Also, I was an Anatomy Lab instructor -- which meant I actually taught one of the lab sections -- cadavers and all. That was for upper division credit. Sigh. yah, I was smart, and I could spell biological words, but apparently I am not smart anymore . . . and I probably could never punctuate those biology terms properly in a sentence . . . AND, my dad is an English Proffessor for crying out loud!!!

Lover of Sweets said...

you ARE crazy!?! What?! how in the world did THAT happen?!? I say, "use your punctuations as freely as you want"....wait if I'm saying it then I don't need to use quotations.? See how I just like to drop different punctuations! wherever I want. That is the freedom of a dumb person(!) I already know you are a genius.
You know what's really annoying speaking of geniuses, your brother is very rarely wrong and it drives me nutty with a capital N!!!
Hurry up and move here already!@#$%

jami v. said...

this is my blog philosophy-you get to write exactly how you want. :) i know this is bad coming from an english teacher but oh well. have you noticed that i never find the capital letters? it's like i used to tease my students that when you're an english teacher you can make up words... well, we'll just say when you're an official blogger you can make up punctuation, etc. :) it's all good.

Nancy said...

Jami, yours is your own cute unique thing and I bet you do know when to use capitals . . . so yours doesn't make you look not smart only cute. I'm going to steal your own unique quirk (remember how mad I am not to have quirks). Still, I will try to soothe myself with your blog philosophy. Oh, you are all so nice to try and tell me it is OK.

Jana said...

How in the world did I not comment on this post ... I know I saw it but like with everything in my life I tend to get sidetracked and forget if I did something or what I did and when I first read this post like two days ago I had so many lovely thoughts about what to say about punctuation but now it is gone because it has been a long day but I will say that one very long sentence with no punctuation is worse than punctuation in the very wrongest of places and that is something that I am very guilty of oh and I like to put commas or dashes in everywhere I pause too whether it is for effect or for a breath you know because we all need to breathe when we read or we would die when we read really long sentences! And if you can read that in one long breath then you are absolutely genius!

Liz said...

I know what you mean I tend to use a lot of dashes in my posting. I'm not quite sure what I am doing. I don't think you could ever sound unsmart - not really a word but I didn't want to say stupid. Your vocabulary is too eclectic for you to sound anything less than brilliant. Do you remember you taught me that word in high school? ECLECTIC- what a nice word.

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