Mari Ness - Fundamental, overwhelming principles:

[Disclaimer: this entry was originally typed in Microsoft Word with the grammar checker on.]

If I have been schooled in any moral issue whatsoever (and I can understand if you're under the impression that I haven't), it is this fundamental, overwhelming principle:

"Aren't I" is lousy English. It grates on the ears.

(And, I've just learned, completely acceptable to Microsoft Word's grammar check. Sigh. What evil times we live in.)

True, other fundamental, overwhelming principles that several well meaning people also attempted to instill in me (don't start sentences with the words "and," "but" or "because," don't stay up late watching Angel dvds when you have to head to Miami the following morning, and so on) have, alas, taken themselves away to the place where fundamental overwhelming principles go when they're being completely ignored. (It's near Washington, DC; they've put a retreat there, just for convenience.) Thus, if you ask me "Aren't I right about the South Beach diet?" my immediate instinctive response will be unrelated to diets or South Beach (although I may spare a thought or two to blame South Beach for keeping people too drunk and too happy to remember fundamental overwhelming principles or this sort), and will instead be "ouch," not entirely because of the phrase itself, but also because it conjures up a chorus of well meaning English teachers from my past all squeaking "Proper English! Proper English!" (They sound rather like deranged rabbits.) Don't blame me; blame my inability to shed all of my principles. Am I not to be pitied for this?

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On a completely different note, it's a bit disconcerting to watch a woman prattle happily about the wonder of "The Secret" (the new trendy thing where you think positive thoughts about what having exactly you want and then wow you actually get it, as demonstrated by its author who thought about it and now has lots of money) and how it's really changed things for her just that week and then watch her trip over and fall across a coffee table, quite painfully. Perhaps she wasn't thinking about it.


*I'll admit that, as grammar issues go, "Aren't I" may not rank up there with, say, "between you and I," [ok, seriously, Microsoft. You're letting that one go – oh, you just want me to remove the word "between." Fair enough, and I would, except that I'm illustrating a bad grammar point here. Moving on.]