Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a fellow writer (NOT with VHP). It was an announcement for her newest book release. Like most authors, she's throwing an on-line bash to celebrate. There was a problem, though. What was it? The second line read, "and your invited..."
I shook my head in dismay. Really?! I'm friendly with this gal. I'll admit that I haven't read her work yet, but I'm happy she has a new release. But come on! YOUR invited?! If she genuinely does not understand the difference, I have to question her abilities as a writer.
That's the problem with e-books and self-publishing. I'm not directing this solely at her. There are a TON of people out there who think they can write. They want to write the great American novel. I get that and I respect that dream. I dream of being an amazing artist. However, I don't paint and then sell you something claiming it to be a masterpiece. At the risk of sounding harsh, people need to know their limitations.
What kills me is that things like this are so commonplace now. Music lyrics boast terrible grammar. Text messages have created an entirely new form of shorthand. People will tell you frankly that they don't care about proper grammar. Their, there and they're are all completely interchangeable. You HAVE to use an apostrophe in order to make a word plural (i.e., horse's versus horses).
What's happening? Our language is one of the most difficult to learn. We're actually making it harder. We're also making ourselves look absolutely foolish on the global stage. Other countries are producing wonderful works of literature. Business people don't perform transactions internationally using text shorthand. To others, we appear as uneducated, inarticulate fools. Personally, that offends me. I am anything but. I hate the fact that my country appears as such to others. We're better than that. We need to show everyone that we are.
Call me crazy, but I genuinely believe that true mastery of our language can and will lead to better things for all of us: both indivdiually and as a nation. Let's get back to speaking and writing the English language as it was intended. You never know what could come of it! :)
Happy reading!
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