Grammer Goddess
I have never professed grammatical proficiency as my blog entries may attest. Though correct comma placement is a dream of mine, I never quite know if I am punctuating right. So when I was asked to consider being an editor for The Journey, I was skeptical. In a moment of inflated confidence I agreed to attend a meeting tonight for editors and aspiring editors.
I rarely feel so out of my element. I was surrounded by lawyers, authors, editors (not the volunteer kind... professionals), seminary students and English professors. I realize I am an attorney (and I was thankful to be able to say so) but the meeting was intimidating. One man actually used the word penultimate in a sentence. PENULTIMATE! I had absolutely no idea what the word meant. I didn't even know it was a word.
Incidentally: pe'nul'ti'mate
adjective
1. next to the last; "the author inadvertently reveals the murderer in the penultimate chapter"; "the figures in the next-to-last column"
noun
1. the next to last syllable in a word [syn: penult]
No one else seemed fazed by the word so I tried to play it off. I politely laughed with everyone as I jotted "pinultimate (sp)?" down so I could look it up and blog about it when I got home. The conversation functioned at a higher level than I am used to and though I thoroughly enjoyed myself, I kept thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?!?"
Hopefully as I critique others I will gleam some insight and my professional and personal writing will improve. The editing process does not begin until September so don't be too hard on me until then. But by November, I hope to be a grammar goddess. Fragments, run-ons, dangling participles, subject verb disagreement and unnecessary punctuation, you have been warned.
4 comments:
hah! You know, this is ironic. Isaac commented last night that he felt much more confident and able to contribute this meeting. However, the last meeting he went to left him feeling the same way you described... intimidated!
I don't know what made the difference, maybe just time.
GrammER? Editing lesson 1, check spelling. Or maybe you were being ironic with a misspelled title, in that case, kudos to you!;)
Can't spell check your titles. I wish spell check worked on titles and comments. Both would be worthwhile endeavors. Luckily the software I will use to edit has spell check. Otherwise I wouldn't agree to do it. I fully acknowledge that I can't spell and thus the typo was not meant to be ironic. But I like the unintended irony so I am leaving it.
I had to look that word up at work too! Who says that? LOL! Glad you're doin' well :-). - Jen Spencer
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